One you shouldn't miss

It pays to be a geek in high school.

While my classmates scampered about carving their bodies into statuesque chiseled granite, or becoming young virtuosos, or getting their proverbial dicks feet wet in non-proverbial poon, we, the few, huddled around the dim glow of a monitor, flanked by the SS, a swarm of Zerg, and an intimidating platoon of empty Mountain Dew cans, waged war on our waistlines, carpals (both meta and otherwise), and blood-sugar levels.

Tortoise and the hare, my friends.

Case in point, I was lucky enough to have a friend who got some premier tickets for Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.  Rest assured, it was the first "some" that either of us "got" in a very long time.

So, is it any good?

Well, let me preface this review by mentioning I never read the comic series off of which the movie was based, and I liked it.  My buddy did read the comic and he also liked it.

Thank you for reading.













For those of you non-virgins not in the know about Scott Pilgrim, here's the story so far:  Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is at the end of a year-long mourning period following a devastating breakup.  To tap off the rust (and potentially tap something else), he starts dating a 17-year-old Chinese Catholic high school student named Knives (Ellen Wong).  If you don't already see how this movie is pretty much tailor-made for the geek psyche, go ahead and re-read that last sentence.

So dreamy...

Amidst his lukewarm courtship of Knives, Scott Pilgrim meets the girl of his dreams: Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  Literally.  As in,  this exact girl was the focal point of one of his dreams. Scott Pilgrim manages to muster the monumental balls necessary to take a shot at Ramona and ends up finding her favor, and dumps Knives.  In exactly that chronological order.

Things get even more complicated when all this coincides with the battle of the bands competition in which Scott Pilgrim's and his friends Kim Pine's (Alison Pill) and Mark Webber's (Stephen Stills) band, Sex Bob-omb, are scheduled to play.  And it gets even more complicated still when Ramona Flowers' evil exes emerge from the shadows of her past to do battle with the new guy.  Also, their world is kind of like a video game/comic book.

As you can see, there's a lot going on.  Not that that's a bad thing.

But in this case, it kind of is.

The Scott Pilgrim comic series unfolds over six self-contained, full-length graphic novels.  It's a monolithic breadth of content director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) decided to tackle in making Scott Pilgrim a 112-minute, stand-alone feature.  And that's exactly where the problems start.

The whole movie is spread entirely too thin.  The beginning of the movie, especially, skips from scene to scene like a sugar-junkie playing hopscotch on a pogo stick (check out that analogy, huh?  Yep, I've still got it).  Not only is it disjointing for the audience as Scott Pilgrim seemingly phases in and out of the first 20 minutes like flipping through pages of a comic book, it seems to even throw Scott.  I was seriously concerned for our protagonist as he flashed from one scene to the next wondering how the hell he got there like he was the main character from Memento or something.

Things settle down a bit as Scott Pilgrim wades through the seven-mannnnn? (you'll see) gauntlet and the movie starts to find a comfortable groove.  Too comfortable, in fact.  Unfortunately, the script, cinematography, and direction never really manage to strike a suitable balance between fast-paced, Ritalin-fueled, smash-mouth movie-making and managing a cohesive narrative.  At its best, Scott Pilgrim manages to be the awesomest parts of Moulin Rouge and the Wachowski brothers' Speed Racer.  At its worst, it manages to be like the other 180 combined minutes of Moulin Rouge and Speed Racer.

At it's heart, Scott Pilgrim is a rom-com.  A rom-com targeted at a much different demographic from the usual rom-com, but a rom-com all the same.  Rom-com.  As a comedy, I've got no complaints; plenty of belly-laughs to be had by even the non-Nintendo generation.  But as a romance, I don't buy it.  Like I said before, it seems like writers Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall were trying to pack so much content into every scene, and stay so true to the comics (for the most part), that it seemed like by the time they got around to actually writing a convincing love story, there was no ink left in the Bic.

Watching Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers interact, I just don't buy that they're in love--or even in like--with each other.  With the exception of a single scene, there never seems to be any chemistry between these two at all, and by the start of the third act, I had to wonder--like the titular (and title) character--why he's even bothering with the romantic royal rumble at all.

Scott Pilgrim certainly peaks early--in fact, of the five (ehhhhhhhhhhh... six?) major fight scenes, the first was by far my favorite, because it seemed to best capture what I had hoped the movie would settle into: a musical, fighting-game inspired, thrill-ride.  And it was a thrill-ride, to be sure.  But, like a rollercoaster, the biggest and best plunge was at the beginning.

I shouldn't be harsh, though.  Like I said, I liked it.  Like a NASCAR race, for all the crashes, there's still a lot going right.  Wait let me check Wikipedia and make sure that's correct shit they actually turn left God dammit okay hold on wait okay: like a NASCAR, it's only tolerable if you're drunk and can hit your wife no wait.  Okay, like the NFL, it's more fun to watch than NASCAR.

Scott Pilgrim sports a very, very unique visual style.  It actually feels like you're watching a video game or reading a comic, and that's something that absolutely no other movie with this sort of source material has ever really accurately pulled off.

With one exception...

Every scene engages the viewer, because there's always something new.  Every frame of this movie is fun to look at.  Every single God damn fr-

In a day and age where most movies--and especially games--are all the same puke-brown and gun-metal gray, it's nice to actually see a little (a lot of) color splashed up on the screen.  After some initial hiccups with the scene direction and editing, the film settles down into a very flashy style with a lot of punch.  Scriptwriters Bacall and Wright clearly had a lot of fun cramming jokes (and fighting game references) into every nook and cranny of this script, and there's great pains taken to make sure the sight gags hit perfectly (see if you can spot the hidden Street Fighter 4 reference; it's my favorite).  I'm sure a lot of critics will contend that Scott Pilgrim is a lot of flash with little in the way of content, but this is a movie that gains a lot of its substance from its style; the director is almost as much of a character as Scott and friends.

And while I didn't really buy the romance angle between Scott and Ramona--I know, I know, it's the entire plot of the movie--believe me when I say that there's real chemistry between the characters.  A movie shot like Scott Pilgrim insists a lot upon its actors: believe in these silly people, this silly script, and this silly world every second you're on-screen.  That's a lot to ask, especially when each scene is so radically different from the last.  If any of the cast phoned it in, this entire movie would collapse on itself.  With something this wild, there's no room for anyone to play tame, and no one ever does.  Even when our characters blow each other off, or act selfish, or do something stupid, like two people hugging in marshmallow fluff, there's a lot of sweetness between them.

For as much fun as Scott and friends seem to have keeping pace with the film, it's really the evil exes who steal the show.  They're all unbelievably funny and have a ton of great lines, in spite of the relatively short screen-time afforded to them.  Each showdown crackles with its own unique brand of energy, like coal, steam, nuclear, or two-headed dragon sprouting from a synthesizer and doing battle with a gorilla monster controlled by a bass guitar.  That's not a metaphor, that's actually a fight scene.  That really actually happens, and by the time it does, you've seen so much wacky shit that you can just go with it.  The fight scenes are all very well done and completely distinct, keeping things from getting too repetitive, which I think is the mark of a really good action movie.  There are a couple cheap cop-out endings to a few of the fights, but even then, they all manage to end on such a high-note that it's not even worth complaining about.

What I will say is that the final fight scene was actually a bit of a disappointment, and was characteristic of the movie's main fault: 90 minutes in, you've already seen everything.  By the time the climax rolls around, it feels a bit like a "best of" rather than another creative addition to the robust catalog of styles and settings.  That said, the action still finds harmony between cartoony and visceral without ever wearing out its welcome.

The soundtrack does a lot to make every scene--particularly the fight scenes--memorable and entertaining.  Scott Pilgrim is as much about the visual style and video game references as it is about the music, and this film got the soundtrack it deserved.  Each battle is set to its own pulsing rock score that gives every crushing blow the appropriate intensity.  Scott Pilgrim is proud of its soundtrack, perhaps to a fault, as there are more than a couple occasions I can think of where it actually drowns out the dialog.  Oops.

In conclusion: go see Scott Pilgrim.  It's opening today, and you will not be disappointed.  Or you will be disappointed, but you'll still have financially supported a part of what I hope is a new wave of fun, creative, imaginative films hitting theaters this year (Kick-Ass, Inception, Repo Men).  And hell, it even inspired me to pick up the comics and give 'em a read.  Even if you don't like it (you will), it's still a great moviegoing experience, and you're sure to have never seen anything else like it.  

Until my Moulin Rouge Vs. Speed Racer mash-up is finished, anyway.

Things I'll miss: The Kids

It's amazing how much can change in three years.

Hell, in four months.

Going to Japan, there were three things I despised more than anything else in the entire world: bigotry, the Yankees, and children, and not always in that order.

Two out of three...

Prior to going to Japan, there was of course the interview.  Eikaiwa, after all, are well-known for their rigorous hiring standards.  At that interview, they asked about, and presumably promptly disregarded, my ideal school environment.  

"Would you like to be placed at a school that teaches children?"

No.  Hell no.  Absolutely not.  I'd rather be crucified by my dick than spend a day locked in a class with those four-foot-tall germ-infested soul-vampires.  Not even for all the money you aren't paying me.
"Well, as I'd like to one day teach at the high school and eventually university level, I'd certainly prefer to be placed in an adult-only school."

Very politic.  Five months later, I found myself at the door of the school with the highest enrollment of children students in all of west Japan.  Beaten.

But not entirely.  At the worst, I had five kids classes a week.  A paltry five.  Five?  That's easy.  That's the number of fingers on each hand, or hairs on my ballsack.  Ha.  For a second, I thought they were going to challenge me.

Most of the load was carried by a bionic super-teacher who held down a strict regimen of six kids classes a day, five days a week, plus organizing the seasonal kids parties and events.  This chick was pulling the equivalent of the six-minute mile: it simply couldn't be done.

At least not by me.

She knew it, too.  The one thing I never, ever liked about this Kids Head Teacher was that she had a real fucking attitude problem and a face to match.  The kind that sized you up immediately, and sized you small.  The look of a person who did their job better than anyone else in the room, but had no interest in sharing, because it would be harder to judge you if you were emulating her.  Someday when I get drunk and do an entry, I'll be sure to bring that piece of work up again.

At the end of my first month at that school, I remember being called upon for a very special lesson.  Seriously, it was called a "special lesson."  What was special about it, I didn't know at the time, but presumably it was the opportunity to take an extra forty minutes out of your busy schedule to allow your child to terrorize an already terrified man wearing a tie.  I'll never forget that day.

Like I said, it was the first month in a new career in a new country in a new life.  The lesson was pretty simple, or so I thought.  The theme was "Going on a Picnic," and although we had no food, we were indoors, and the only "going" took place in the tiny bathroom adjacent to the shoe-shelf outside the kids area, there we were.  Ready to go.

In my dainty princess fingers, I held a pretty little plush picnic basket, filled to burst with flannel fruits and cloth cold-cuts, truly a meal fit for a Muppet.  I also had my lesson plan, my flash cards, and a set of thoroughly shot nerves, if only to prove that the little bastards can smell fear and the poop rapidly filling my official eikaiwa-authorized boxer-briefs.  Yep, ready to go.

The clock rolled to 2:00 PM and in the lobbies two mothers and two six-year-old boys said their goodbyes.  I nodded to the parenting pair, the kind of assuring nod you give to your dentist when he lectures you on the importance of flossing while in the back of you're mind you're trying to think if dental floss would be an adequate substitute for your weekend fishing trip--it is minty-fresh, after all.  Totally ready to go.
We walked into the room, they put their bags and plush picnic baskets off in the corner, and turned to face me, their trusted, devoted, beloved teacher.  Okay everyone, ready to go?

And then I closed the door.

Like a sorority girl in a "don't get raped" contest at the Sigma Tau house, exactly the first minute proceeded according to plan.  Actually, for a moment there I even counted my blessings--I had well behaved kids.  That was the first mistake of a rookie teacher.  You never, ever assume your kids are well behaved until at least the fifth lesson.

Hello song, ABC song, what's your name, can you say sandwich?  Three times!  Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich... GO!  Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich... very goooood, now let's look here, what's this?  It's a............. tomato!  Very good, Kohei!  Let's say tomato thee times!  Tomato toma-Yu, look at me please.  Tomato, tomato, tomato... GO!  Tomato, to- Yu, stop, put that down!  Yu!  What's this?  It's a.......?  It's a tomato!  Can y- no, Kohei, we're not getting our picnic baskets yet!  ...why isn't anybody helping me?
Panic.  With the agility of a runaway Toyota, and the composure to match, I knew things were falling apart.  And where did I put that lesson plan?  I know I had it a sec- KOHEI PUT THAT DOWN!  NO!  ABUNAI!!  Forget it, we're playing a game.  I know, what about run-and-touch?

It's a simple game--one in every amateur teacher's playbook.  Something simple enough to explain to a class you've never taught before, active enough to get students involved, and one that requires relatively little proficiency of the language on the part of the students.

Perfect, I thought.

Second mistake of a rookie teacher.  You never, ever start a game with an unruly class.  Establish control first, then play a game.

I had the students get their picnic baskets and arrange their materials along the wall in a line that would make Hansel and Gretel proud.  This, I thought, was the opportunity to prove myself, to seize victory from the chopsticks of defeat.  To show my Kids Head Teacher that I was every bit the kids teacher she was, and younger, more energetic and had a better set of jugs, too.

Okay, ready?  Let's run and touch apple!  1... 2... GO!!  Where is it?  Which one?  Which one's the appl-

BANG

Oh God.  Oh Jesus.  Yu!  Yu, are you okay?

In the throes of apple-pursuing euphoria, the intricacies of placing one foot in front of the other suddenly eluded the boy.  About three feet from the wall.  The kid left a face-shaped divot in the drywall where he had just buried his noggin.  Or, at least he would have, had it been drywall and not concrete.
The roar of grief-stricken sobs of the boy with the busted face trickled through the closed door like a hurricane crashing on the Louisiana coastline.  There was no way I could fail privately now.  Not with mom #1 and mom #2 bursting into the classroom to see what I had done to their adorable nosferatus feasting on my will to live (nosferatii?).

The aforementioned mothers, seen here leaving their apartment

It was easy to explain to mom what had happened and she was very understanding.  Japanese parents, for all their faults, seem to understand that kids are dipshits.  The difficult part was that I still had 30 minutes left in class.

Finally, Yu settled down enough to come back to class.  As long as mom was outside, and the door could be open.  Well, okay.  If my nerves were shot before, they were a smoldering crater now with the sudden parental supervision and class in total disarray.  But as long as Yu's not cryi-

BUAAAHHHH!!!

He shut the door.  Kohei shut the fucking door.  And he figured out that anytime he did, it made Yu cry.  So guess what suddenly became the funniest thing in the world?  Suddenly I found myself locked inside the world's least jolly Jack-in-the box.  Close the lid, and bask in the childish wail of an awkward white man and two naughty Japanese boys locked in a room together.

No pedo.

I looked at the clock.

29 more minutes.

Somebody please help me.

Especially since--and I know anyone else who has taught Japanese boys will corroborate this--when they really, really get going crying, they'll try to really, really step it up on the Drama Queen-o-Meter by doing this deep, throaty hacking cough where they'll start drooling and spitting, presumably because that's what they saw when they snuck into their dad's "secret videos."

So wow, yeah.  Pretty horrible.  In fact, the most horrible experience in my entire professional career.  Even more horrible than when one of my students confided in me that he lost his job and he didn't have enough money to pay to keep coming to class.  Right before we started the class.

Alright everyone, let's start with a pronunciation exercise!  Repeat after me: awkward.

So after all that, how can it possibly be that I miss the kids so much?  Well, because that wasn't the last kids class I ever taught.  Not even close.  After that, I probably logged about 1500 hours teaching kids, not to mention about 2000 teaching adults.  Funny thing about standing up in front of a class, eventually, the pressure stops getting to you.  You stop realizing you're in front of a crowd.  You stop noticing that you're the center of attention because of course you're the center of attention.  You stop worrying about the class derails, the struggles with class clowns, the picky parents.

And you start to enjoy it.

I've affected what I like to call "teacher mode."  It first manifested with the realization that there'd be another class after this one, and another after that, and another, and another, until they one day they put you in a pine box in the ground.  I'm pretty sure at first it only happened in class, but these days it strikes without warning.  My wife catches me in these moments all the time.  We'll be sitting on a rock in the middle of Hirakata park and enjoying a sandwich.  Mrs. Merican will ask what's in it, or how I got the meat so tender (plenty of practice, babe.  Plenty of practice), and the didactic reflex kicks in.

The first thing that happens is my posture changes; my shoulders roll back and my spine straightens.  My eyes widen with excitement and my volume goes up about 20 decibels as I launch into a detailed explanation of the nuance of the marinade, or just exactly how sautéed these mofuckin' onions are.  She stops me.
Like a 'Nam flashback, the Pavlovian trigger hits and it's like being back in the jungle.

"You can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the 'kaiwa."

My final four months in Japan--those following my arrival at my new school--I count as the most dear of any point in my life, because happiness is all in the company you keep.

I'll tell you the story of a girl that I'll name "Kumi."

Kumi was 11 years old.  I had her in a higher-level elementary English class with another girl, Sumiko.  They came to school every Saturday and put in their time.  45 minutes of English with a tall, gangly, goofy-looking white dude with a high-pitched voice and a terrible haircut.  Not a lot of traditionally "cool" dudes in my line of work, and I certainly wasn't breaking any molds in that department.  Unfortunately, that's the kind of teacher they wanted.  And, I'm told, the kind that they had before he moved on and my doughy ass showed up.

Kumi and Sumiko are, and were, at that tender young age where everything sucks and is gay (I had one of those phases ;) luv ya matt xoxoxo).  Parents, school, and most of all, English class.  And I'll admit, I'm kind of a hardass in my classes.  I play lots of games, but I don't play games, if you catch my meaning.  I want my kids to learn and have fun learning, but I have a very low tolerance for bullshit.  I push my kids, because I know they can handle it.  I want them to like me, but I need to see them succeed.

That put the three of us in a bit of a predicament, and created a very love-hate relationship in the classroom.  Some days I'd have them, others they'd joke around and deliberately try to mess up as much as possible.  I'd have them for one activity and the next game they shit the bed.  Consistently inconsistent, these girls.  And while I could usually get them to laugh and have fun with English at least once a class, it was a struggle to keep that feeling for long.

Then the last week came: special lessons.

You can imagine how thrilled I was.  A week's worth of lessons with loose structure, little in the way of guidelines and available materials, and a lot of kids of wildly varying ages and ability levels all in the same class.  And fortunately, nary a picnic basket in sight.

Kumi, for whatever reason, was there all day.  Eight straight hours, three straight days, and almost all of that time was to be spent in my classes.

Honestly, I was glad.  She'd be the oldest, and despite struggling in her current class, she still had a fairly good grasp of the language.  If nothing else, she could be a role-model.

Bored before the start of school, I grabbed a ball and tossed it to her.

Catch?

She stood up and chucked it back.  Back and fourth we lobbed, kicked, volleyed, and smacked the soft, green-and-blue miniature soccer ball before class.  And after class.  And after the next, and the next.  She kept coming back.  I even thought I caught a smile.

The second day, she was in my magic class (I'm a hobbyist magician--although definitely not a good one--just barely good enough to impress kids).  Minutes in, I knew something was different as her eyes traced my movements around the room, her hands intently patterning after mine, fingers lacing through her blue deck of Hoyles as she followed along with each step of a card-guessing trick.

And the next day, as she joined me for sports class and a fifth-grade enrichment class, I was the teacher she exchanged high-fives with, asked for help, and wanted to partner with, that she passed the soccer ball to and entrusted with the open shot at the goal, even when other teachers were there.  The cold, quizzical expressions and occasional derisive laughter seemingly gone and forgotten from her repertoire, now replaced with the warmth of a smile.  I wasn't just the stringy American spaz in front of the class.  I was her stringy American friend.

And so the third day ended.

We played catch again as the day drew to a close.  The lukewarm tolerance abiding yet another day of my bullshit that mired the activity in an uncomfortable weight felt lifted, and we were free to have fun as we laughed and tossed the soccer ball in the hallway.

As the game finished, she walked to the door and slipped on her pre-tied pink-and-white sneakers and looked up at me.  Happy.

Are you coming tomorrow?

Tomorrow?  Tomorrow, no.

Oh.  Practice your soccer, okay?

Okay!

See you!

See you!

And then she left.

Sadness.  I'll never see her again.  And likely, not any of my students.

But every minute of that four-month Saturdaily uphill battle suddenly became worth it for the exchange of one smile, beaming so much brighter, more brilliant, the most genuine thing I've ever seen, as she looked over her shoulder at me before she walked out the door into the mall and parking lot and into the rest of her life.  A moment, locked in time, where, across a language barrier 2600 miles wide, we spoke without words:

"You're not that goofy."

"You're a good kid."

The joy of being a teacher is that the students we teach, teach us.

Kids, Kumi, thank you for the lesson.

Things I won't: TV

In the interest of full disclosure, I suppose it's only fair to mention: this is pretty much the article I've been putting off writing since I started my blog.  No lie.

And things are about to get ugly.

Where to even begin with Japanese TV?  I guess it would be prudent to dispel a few of the myths surrounding Japanese TV for the those of you whose experience and knowledge of the product is exclusively from YouTube.  Because that stuff generally isn't what I'm talking about.  99% of the stuff that makes you go "lol those crazy japanese lol" you see on YouTube is about 1% of the actual content of Japanese TV.  Many Westerners who have never lived there seem to operate under the delusion that Japan is a mecca for quality TV dramas like "Liar game" or "Rookies," or awesome game shows that uncreative Western TV producers shamelessly rip off (see: "I Survived a Japanese Game Show").

What I'm about to tell you is the truth of the matter.

Japanese TV is where the same 35 talentless hacks go to circle-jerk each other raw every day in front of a live studio audience.

These two shows are completely exempt from any of the bad shit I'm about to say

When I say this to most people, they immediately retort "sounds like American TV."  Well, no, idiots.  Because as shitterible as shows like Maury and Access Hollywood and everything on MTV is, you can still avoid it.  That option simply does not exist on Japanese airwaves.  If you turn on the TV, there's a 99% chance you're watching garbage.  And every time you change the channel, you roll the dice again.  Because virtually every single Japanese TV show is "The View," except with an offensively technicolor set and about three to six times the number of obnoxious, saccharine, soulless jackasses doing the same obnoxious, saccharine, soulless routines that earned them their 15 minutes of fame 15 months ago.  Japanese TV is almost entirely populated by arbitrarily famous people bullshitting in front of a live studio audience and calling itself programming.  It's what you would watch if you were a lonely, depressed person to pretend you actually have friends.

It's seriously, 24/7, celebrities sitting around eating, with close-up camera zooms of some dipshit with Parkinson's holding food up for the camera and the same worthless picture-in-picture reaction shots of the same worthless people shouting "OISHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" at the top of their lungs as if this time it will somehow grant them the attention and acceptance from the audience they never received growing up, to fill the black, empty void left by their childhoods.  I'm not just talking about talk-shows either.  What I just described happens on the God damn news.

The most confounding part of Japanese TV is that their TV "personalities" are referred to as "comedians," despite having no routine, no prepared material, and not doing anything remotely funny or entertaining.  I suppose the reasoning behind this nomenclature is that "attention whore" doesn't translate well.

Perhaps, by this point, you feel that I'm being entirely too harsh.  Culture, and especially humor, are entirely subjective.  I'm just one man spitting in a typhoon.

I thought so, too, until I watched some of these famous TV personalities venture out in public and saw that no one else can really tolerate them, either.  Occasionally, you'll see a couple of attention whoremedians go out and do their act on the street, or in front of some famous restaurant, and just get absolutely killed.  No one laughs or even cracks a smile.  The live audience just exchanges uncomfortable glances until the ordeal is over and these hacks go and peddle their shlock in front of someone else.

One TV moment that stands out as a shining example of this is when one particular boil on the collective ass of Japanese TV decided to take on the Guinness Record for longest stand-up performance: 30 hours.  Less than 20 minutes in, he had clearly run completely out of any sort of prepared material and was reduced to making faces and screaming strange sounds at the ocean of empty seats.  It was like watching a somehow-less-funny Robin Williams.

Occasionally, a curious passerby would sit in for a few minutes, a vacant, emotionless stare fixed on the zoo-animal in front of the cameras, and moving on, wishing him a "ganbare" (remember what I said about what that actually means?) as they left.  It's only when his shit-shoveling act was joined by other "comedians" and celebrities that his "act" ever got any laughs at all.  And that was the moment, for me, that exposed the sham of Japanese TV for the poorly lubricated circle-jerk it truly is.

The TV studio is a closed system where people with the same career all gather to contratulate each other on a mediocre-job-well-done in front of the only 200 people in the country who give a shit.  It's like watching an awards show, all day, every day, 365 days a year.  The idea of "game shows" featuring random people off the street, or someone breaking into Japanese show-business without being heavily connected, paying their dues, or having belonged to an idol group being heavily pushed by a record label is absolutely unheard-of.  It's just the same self-congratulatory bullshit all the time.

From time to time on Japanese TV There are talent shows where "comedians" will come up and do their "routine," which is typically either speaking really fast and screaming the same punchline over and over for a few minutes, or making faces and falling down while screaming.  Again, if this sounds funny, believe me it loses its charm after a couple months when this is seriously every other person's act.  After they do their routine, there's a panel of judges who rates them.  The most famous of these shows is "Red Carpet," where comedians stand on a red conveyor belt and do their thing, and then are whisked away and the judges rate them as either 大笑 (very funny), 中笑(pretty funny), or  小笑 (not very funny).  

In two years, I only ever saw two people not get the highest possible ranking--they got the second-highest.  Occasionally you see people up there and you can tell they worked really hard on making a good routine, and it's gut-bustingly funny.  And it's completely devalued by the fact that Japanese TV, by design, is a circle-jerk that lavishes praise upon itself and its members for trivial accomplishments.

It's why every shot has a picture-in-picture of a celebrity's reaction shot, because God forbid we go one second without seeing a celebrity!  We might forget they even exist.  It's like watching a party through a window, except everyone inside has Asperger's Syndrome, and the place was designed by a colorblind meth addict.

The one major thing that makes it all so infuriating is an appalling lack of effort.

You can literally go an entire day channel-surfing--24 hours--without hearing a single line of scripted dialogue outside of the narrator's voice-over describing whatever ramen or daifuku place the flavor-of-the-week celebrities are screaming at the top of their lungs at.

And what's so infuriating about all this is that when honest-to-God effort is actually made, the product is almost always fantastic.  I'm not even saying "fantastic by comparison," either.  I mean flat-out great, world-class entertainment.

I can't remember the name of the show exactly, but in my last few months of in Japan, there was a TV show about a giant game of tag set in an old-style Japanese village.  The contestants, all Japanese celebrities (of course, who would want to see anyone new?), dressed in Naruto-style ninja outfits as they tried to run and hide from "hunters," who were basically guys dressed as Matrix-style agents--and these guys seriously must have been former Olympic sprinters because no one ever outran these guys for long.

The basic premise was that the contestants had to survive for three hours, and as each second rolled off the clock, the value of the cash prize went up.  If any of the contestants could complete a set of objectives, they were free to go to a certain spot and leave the game with whatever amount the pot was at.  Anyone who survived the full three hours would get the full amount.  By itself, it's a great premise, but the beauty, as they say, is in the details.

Rather than being a ghost town, the old village was populated by actors playing the part of characters from various Japanese fables, or merchants, guides, or monks there to offer advice or just bring the setting to life.  Occasionally, the contestants would run into a character and have a chance to do something to help out one of these characters, who, in turn, would help the contestants out later on.  For example, one of the characters roaming the ancient Japanese setting was Kintaro.

Kintaro lost his axe, and asked a contestant to help him find it.  Upon the contestant finding it and returning it to him, Kintaro thanked him and went on his way.  Later on in the game, monsters attacked the village and started a 10-minute journey to a shed containing 20 hunters.  If they made it to the shed before the contestants could find someone to stop the monsters, they'd release the hunters, effectively doubling the chance of the contestants getting tagged out.  But if the contestants could find someone to stop them...

This guy looks like a competent monster-slayer

...then the hunters would stay locked up in the shed for the rest of the game, making it easier to survive.

Unfortunately, 10 minutes isn't a lot of time.  So, when things looked dire and the time limit drew closer, out came an axe-wielding Kintaro to stay the monster's rampage, buying the contestants valuable time to complete the objectives necessary to put a stop to the monsters once and for all.

The game was full of great moments like this, where every action influenced the outcome, and every scene was shot in a dramatic, cinematic style.  It was funny, it was smart, it was interesting and exciting and better than any game or contest I've ever seen in the States by a factor of a thousand.

But unfortunately, it requires effort, so the odds of ever seeing anything like it again are insignificant.

Japanese commercials, similarly, have way, way higher production value than the TV they interrupt.  Why?  Effort.  As anyone in advertising will tell you, the amount of effort put into an advertising campaign is directly related to the dividends it pays.  Commercials have stiff competition to earn your hard-earned yen, so they can't afford not to impress.

Japanese TV is locked in a status-quo spiral that I fear it will never, ever pull out of.  No one has to try to impress anyone, because people will watch TV, even if it's all shit, because there's nothing else to watch.  And trust me, it's all shit.

For anyone still in Japan, I want you to try a little experiment.  Next time you're over at your Japanese friend's place and they're watching some celebrity circle-jerk, wait for a commercial and turn to them and just ask "what is the name of the show we're watching right now?"  In three years, I have never, ever seen anyone give the correct answer.

And so, Japanese TV, for sucking so consistently, for being so routinely obnoxious, and for extolling the absolute worst of Japanese culture, fuck you.  Just... fuck you.

And try.  Please, please just try.

Things I won't: Doctors

This is the part in the farewell entries where the bile starts to build a little bid.  Which wouldn't be a problem, except that there's not a single competent doctor in a thousand miles to take care of that.  I mentioned in one of my first entries that everything in Japan is a cold.  And boy, I was not lying.

Seriously.

Everything--and I mean everything--in Japan is a cold.  EVERYTHING.  In the case of my wife, she had mono and pneumonia misdiagnosed as colds.  By comparison, I got lucky.  Just a mis-diagnosis of food poisoning (twice) and the flu as colds.  It's like the concept of science hasn't advanced past the point of illness originating from demons quarreling within your four humors.  Just grope the patient a bit, stick a thermometer under their tongue, and then go into the office and toss a dart at the board and that's what the illness is.  Except this is what the board looks like:

The blame, in large part, I think can be laid on the "you have three weeks of vacation from work every year, except you can never take them and also you have to work holidays and weekends for free" attitude that permeates corporate Japanese society, and therefore, society as a whole.  Calling everything a cold basically acknowledges that, yes, there's something wrong inside your body, but not enough to prevent you from putting in 14 hours of overtime, so back to work, bitch.

Because Japanese people have been essentially programmed that "illness = cold," they don't even bother with getting a medical opinion even when they really need it.  I actually saw one woman on the train moaning and wailing, clutching her stomach in agony and I suggested she go to the hospital.  "No big deal," she said.  "It's just a cold."

I was like "bitch, there's a head sticking out of your cooter!"

Japanese doctors are seriously something else entirely.  There's a doctor shortage in Japan (because anyone remotely competent to practice medicine leaves the country for greener pastures), and a lack of competition has devolved into a clusterfuck of ineptitude and apathy.  My wife has been suffering with pain in her neck and right arm for about a month and has been going to a rehab clinic to try and re-align her spine (apparently, even Japanese doctors think a cold localized in the neck and arm for five weeks is a bit suspicious).  After attending rehab nearly every day for a month, a doctor approached her after her rehab session and said--and I quote--"we have no idea what's wrong with you.  You can pay at the counter."

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a first-world country with a medical system that actually makes America's look like it has its shit together.

The worst part is, a few Japanese people I've talked to actually defend this Hippocratic Hiroshima by saying that it's not that Japanese doctors are inept, it's that they don't immediately swing for the fences and prescribe something to fix the problem.  This is not true.  In fact, prescribing medication is the one part of the job Japanese doctors do well.  I received an average of about four medicines per prescription when I visited the doctor.  The problem is that the medicine is worthless.  Seriously.  The only way Japanese medicine could possibly be more worthless is if they didn't bother removing it from the Tic-Tac box it came in so you couldn't even get the placebo effect.

But honestly, I think the problem is even more deeply rooted than the horrendous corporate culture, the fact that Japanese doctors all suck at their jobs, and that the medicine makes Children's Tylenol look like the bacta tank Luke hung out in at the start of Empire Strikes Back.

10 out of 10 Japanese doctors thought Luke was in here because he caught a really bad cold from the wampa

The fact of the matter is that if you you look hard enough, you can find the occasional doctor who didn't spend the entirety of med school snorting crushed-up suppositories off a tongue depresser.  True story: I had suffered with that toe injury for six months before the doctor (and I use that term loosely) whom I had been seeing every day of that duration finally suggested I get surgery.  I think he thought curing me would kill the goose that laid the golden pus-bubbles.

What followed the surgery was a long and painful four-week road to recovery.

A couple months ago, when my toe started acting up again and got about as bad as it had ever been in the space of a week, I went to the doctor, he looked at it, and gave me a look like "let's fucking do this" and cut into me that day.  I was up and around less than a week later.

No, the problem lies deeper than the incompetence of the vast majority of Japanese medical professionals (and to prove that I've been around the block enough to cast judgement, I'm sporting in my wallet no less than 16 doctors office membership cards), or the regimen of sugar pills the prescribe.  No, the problem stems from the language itself: from one single word, a word my first doctor said to me at the end of every single visit while I was struggling with that toe injury, and that nearly every other doctor had said to me before or since: "ganbare."

For those of you lucky enough not to know what this word means, it has no direct English translation, but "push yourself" or "do your best" are fairly close approximations.  I know what you're thinking: "nothing wrong with a little word of encouragement," right?  No, nothing at all.  Except that's not what this word is used for.  Because while the literal translation is "do your best," when it comes from someone in a position of authority or power, what it actually means is "you're on your own, chump."

Doctors in particularly love this one as a quick and easy substitute for actual medical advice.  I've actually heard it so much I'm inoculated to it to it and it just sounds like a cough or an "um, uh..." to me now.  So I suppose I should give credit where it's due: it's the only thing a Japanese doctor has ever successfully inoculated anyone against.

Bosses love this one, too.  With just a word, it absolves them of all responsibility to provide assistance, explanation, advice, supervision, or even a physical presence outside of their corner office.  "We have a lot of work to do this week and I really want to play Tetris, so you all have to work overtime.  Ganbare."

You can even use it like my head teacher in a class this past week when the task is impossible!  We were doing special fun lessons last week for the start of summer instead of the usual curriculum--just something for the kids to do before the start of summer vacation.  One of the classes was for building Legos, and for the older kids, the task was to assemble a fairly complex Lego Technic set.  If you've never seen one of these before, it's a pretty involved process.

The instruction manual outlines over 50 steps to turn your plastic pile into a mechanical marvel and they do not fuck around.  If it's not perfect, your shit don't work.  Cool stuff, though.

But halfway through, one of the students got stuck.  The instructions called for a piece he couldn't find.  He didn't lose it--I had been watching him and we turned the classroom upside-down.  I went through the instructions with him and he had followed them perfectly.  It was just missing from the original package.  By this point, he was pretty upset and I got the head teacher to come into class to explain the problem.  She tore his half-built Lego-kart apart piece-by-piece and told him to just rebuild it without the piece.  And as he sat there looking about as shattered as his former go-kart, out came that God damn word: ganbare.

No.

No.  Fuck you, no.  That's a fucking cop-out.  That's the biggest fucking cop-out in the entire culture.  In the entire world.  In the history of cop-outs.  Ask someone to do the impossible, but it's okay just push yourself. Here's a thing that literally can't be done... do your best.

Okay, here's two sandwich bags, a handful of oak leaves, and a measuring cup.  Build me a refrigerator.  Ganbare.

Oh well.  At least health insurance is cheap.  If there's one good thing that can be said about Japan's healthcare system (which is coincidentally the exact number of good things that there are about it), it's that it proves the old adage correct: you get what you pay for.

Before I continue, I'd like to say that the following paragraph does not apply to the surgeon who took care of my second toe surgery (he also has never said ganbare).  You, sir, actually rolled up your sleeves and did something.

So, Japanese doctors, for your terrible care, utter disregard for an entire century o fmedical science, and your worthless, one-word medical advice, I'd like to send you all a big, hearty "fuck you."  Take those scalpels to your own throats and see how far you can launch a blood-rocket.

Ganbare.

Things I'll miss: Soda

Without a doubt, the 'Pan is a land of unparalleled culinary acumen.  Japan, despite its diminutive size and ethnic homogeneity, boasts as broad a palate of flavors far too sprawling to even begin to discuss here.  Each region, each prefecture, each town sports a unique specialty to offer the hungry traveler.

The only thing deeper than the pool of culinary talent and delicacies they offer, is the pockets necessary to experience it all.  Enjoying all the Japanese dining scene has to offer is as enriching as it is costly.  If it's not the price tag of menu that's killing you, it's the cost of the trip itself.

Sadly, I leave the 'Pan hardly the gastric Perry I had originally set out to be--time and money both being the most treasured and scarce commodities in the life of an Eikaiwa teacher.

But.

Japanese flavors aren't only found in 2-star Michelin marvels or tucked away in small-town back-alleys.  For the rest of us, a taste of Japan is only as far as the convenience store.  Indeed, Japan's ample supply of soft drinks is the stuff of legend, at least for the worldly--or at least Internet-wise--fan of the 'Pan.

The journey of the soft-drink enthusiast in Japan is not unlike that of the restaurant-hunter: a voyage twisting through the sweetest, dizzying highs and the deepest, murkiest bile pits.  And honestly, an experienced effervescent explorer such as myself prefers the latter category.  Because when Japanese soda is good, it's great.  But when it's bad, it's a brand-new kind of terrible that somehow defies all logic.  It's a core-shaking, liver-clenchingly revolting experience unlike anything the West has to offer, out side of it's fascination with Justin Bieber (seriously, who is this guy?  Do you have any idea how weird it is hearing about your own country's national phenomena third-hand is?)

So join me.  Join me in my world of sugar-water.

Pepsi Ice Cucumber
This first one is very close to my heart, because it was the first Japanese novelty soda I ever tried.  Released in the summer of 2007, Pepsi Ice Cucumber was the first soda to finally hit that elusive demographic of those who like vegetables, but don't find them carbonated or liquid enough.  The result is about what you might expect: a mind-bending ride as your taste buds struggle to reconcile what they're experiencing with what millions of years of evolution dictates should not be possible in the natural world.  The result?  Not too sweet, not too strong, and not too good.

Rating: 3/5

Shortly before the genetically engineered super-clones manufactured by the seemingly legit but entirely corrupt SpliceCorp systematically slaughter and replace humanity en masse, one rogue scientist, possibly looking suspiciously like Jeff Goldblum, will bust in on a board meeting and pull out a bottle of Pepsi Ice Cucumber as proof that science can go too far.

Pepsi Baobab

No, that's not a typo.  Pepsi Baobab is a newer addition to the Pepsi novelty line and is really only remarkable in the sense that in spite of the confusing name and the depiction of the Serenghetti at dusk on the bottle, there's really nothing remarkable whatsoever about this one.  It's just a disappointingly plain and cola-like taste.

Rating: 2/5

Tastes like one part original Pepsi, one part ginger ale, and one part baobab (which I think is the stuff Rafiki smeared on Simba's face at the start of the Lion King).

Pepsi Azuki

Getting closer, here.  Again, Pepsi went to the vault to figure out the most meaningless and obscure flavors to blend with carbonated water and high-fructose corn syrup and churned out this stuff.  It has a strong, musky odor, like the scent of a man or perhaps a woman on one of those not-so-fresh-feeling days, and the pleasing color of what leaks out of a kidney badly in need of dialysis.

Rating: 3/5

This one isn't exactly good.  It's a round, dull, throbbing, sweet flavor all the way down and lingers long after the fact.  Drinking it, you can't help but feel like they accidentally skipped a step in the recipe, leaving you with a similarly round, dull, throbbing set of beverage-induced blue-balls (a term that coincidentally was introduced by PepsiCo when the decided to take Pepsi Blue off the shelves).

Pepsi Shiso

This is the first truly bad soda on this list.  While Azuki felt like it was missing something and Ice Cucumber tasted way, way too much like it was supposed to, Pepsi Shiso set the bar really high for what a bad beverage could truly wreak upon the human soul.  For the uninitiated, Shiso is a leaf not unlike peppermint, typically used as a garnish in Japanese cuisine.  It tastes a bit like peppermint, even, but way stronger without tasting any mintier, if that makes any sense.  Shiso was was never meant to be the star of the show, as this chemical monstrosity points out, like a toddler proudly showing off his latest masterpiece in the medium of porcelain.

Rating: -10/5

If I rip on other sodas later on in this entry and then give them a seemingly arbitrarily high score, here's the reason.  This liquid tragedy hits your senses like a potable Sonny Chiba, pounding your tongue relentlessly, destroying every other trace of flavor, smell, or memory of a beautiful and pure world, and making you pay a buck for the privilege.  And also an increased risk of diabetes.  This stuff is pure existential dread in a bottle, filtered through Satan's ass-pubes.  Pepsi Shiso is one of the few beverages on this list I simply lacked the fortitude to finish.

Pepsi Strong Shot

Seemingly Pepsi's attempt to make a a fashionably late arrival to the energy drink party, and with a price tag to match: over two bucks for a puny can.  Energy drinks are more or less in a class all of their own and outside the scope of this article, but I felt it worthy of a mention, seeing as how Pepsi is the most prolific contributer to this list.

Rating: 2/5

Weak.  At best.  It tastes like flat Pepsi original, and I didn't feel any more alert after drinking it.  Interesting side-note: it says on the can you have to be 15 to drink it.  The only reason I could possibly think of for this is to make younger kids want to try it.

Skal Melon Cream Soda

After a fairly mediocre start by Pepsi, we're getting into Skal's line of products.  When I first saw bottles of Skal on store shelves I was like, "what, the chewing tobacco guys?"  But actually, these dudes have a solid, if unorthodox, beverage line.  Melon Cream Soda was my most recent purchase of theirs, and it exceeded every expectation.

Rating: 5/5

Melon Cream Soda is everything a soft drink strives to be: sweet, refreshing, fizzy, flavorful, and loaded with sugar.  You'd expect the melon flavor would be too subtle and would be overpowered by all the high-fructose corn syrup and sugar, but actually it's very pronounced, leaving a satisfying summer beverage, as refreshing to sip as it is to gulp.

Skal Ramune

This is the first Skal beverage I ever tried, and one of the rarer flavors.  My first apartment had a vending machine that kept me supplied with these, right next to a beer machine.  The two machines fought bitterly for my hard-earned change--and to say that a soft-drink regularly beat out a supply of cheap, readily-available beer from a machine that couldn't judge me is saying a lot.

I couldn't find my picture of Skal Ramune, so this a rough visual representation of what it tastes like

Rating: 4/5

A year ago, I'd have given this a 5, easily.  After I moved out of that apartment, it was almost a year-and-a-half before I had another chance to try it, and it's not quite as good as I remembered it.  Maybe it's because I've since gone on to try different and better sodas, but it's not the same head-over-heels love I once felt for the sugary-sweet, powder-blue, Japanese candy-flavored beverage.  Like all Skal products, it loses its carbonation fast, and Skal Ramune seems to faster than any other.  It's not nearly as good when it's flat.  But, if you have a crack at this stuff, take it and don't hold back.  Great drink.

Skal Grape Cream Soda

Another solid entry in the Skal line, but my least favorite of the bunch.  I have to admit, with the exception of Skal Melon Cream Soda, I'm not entirely sold on Japan's (and Skal's, in particular) fascination with cream soda, partially because in Japan, "cream soda" actually means "milky."

A visual approximation of how you feel when drinking Skal Grape Cream Soda

Rating: 3/5

Not bad.  It's a strong, refreshing grape flavor that has a nice, clean aftertase.  I feel like it'd be better if it didn't look and taste like Children's Maalox, though.  This is definitely one case where being a cream soda really holds the drink back.

Sweet Kiss

Along with Skal Ramune, this was the other drink that vied for my attention at my old apartment.  These two were best buds, and at 100-yen a half-liter, they often went home together.

Seriously, this is what it was

Rating: 4/5

This one probably ranks unfairly high due to nostalgia, but this stuff really is designed to be enjoyed on a hot summer day in Nara.  It's Japan's answer to Mountain dew, but is unfortunately  much less common and honestly not as good.  Again, it oges flat fast and the second that fizz is gone, Sweet Kiss basically defines the expression sugar-water, one shuddering, sphincter-clenching swig at a time.

The Final Fantasy Collection

There is no more ample metaphor for the modern Final Fantasy series than their soft drink line: saccharine, shockingly unsatisfying, and absolutely nothing you haven't already had before a million times.  Also it's really expensive ($2 a can).

Dissidia Potion

Potion hit the shelves during the hype leading up to Dissidia's release and was almost criminally collectible.  If you've never played it, Dissidia is Square's PSP Final Fantasy fighting game featuring the chief protagonist and antagonist of many of the first ten "numbered" FF games.  And with 16 characters came 16 can designs, of which I got three.  Two for Terra and Kefka from Final Fantasy 3/6, and one of Squall as a gift from a co-worker who apparently thought I was either retarded or gay.

Rating: 2/5

Potion tastes purple.  There's no other way to describe it.  It's carbonated purple stuff from the Sunny D commercials.

Final Fantasy XIII Elixir

This one was released in the hype leading up to Square's third motion picture, "Final Fantasy XIII," which was released exclusively for the PS3 and XBOX360.  I bought one of afro guy because afro guy.

Rating: 2/5

Quick Japanese vocabulary lesson: In America, "cider" is pulpy apple juice that it's okay to get drunk on in front of your kids.  In Japan, "cider" is kind of their equivalent to Sprite or 7UP, minus the lemon-lime flavor.  There are many, many, many different brands of the stuff and it all tastes the same, which is to say it all tastes like Elixir.  Totally unremarkable, and honestly a step down in effort from its predecessors, so I'm going to subtract one point for laziness, bringing the score down to a 1/5.  But I'll add a point, since it's such an apt metaphor for FF13, bringing it back up to 2/5.  Fun fact: despite having been released more than a year ago, Elixir is still collecting dust on store shelves.  They seriously can't get rid of the stuff.

Dragon Quest Slime

I honestly bought this stuff just for the bottle.  and then I found out that the sweet design was just a cheap plastic sleeve and felt totally ripped off, paying a whopping three bucks for a paltry amount of beverage, making this the most expensive drink on the list by a fair margin ($3 a bottle).

Rating: 2/5

Let it not be said that there is no truth in advertising.  DQ Slime is exactly what the name implies: a thick, syrupy goop that tastes like you ran through the set of Ghostbusters with your mouth open.  If you work in food service and the boss tells you to despise of an expired bag of Sprite syrup, and you cant bring yourself to waste it, you too can taste Dragon Quest Slime by mixing equal parts syrup and tap water.  Just make sure you have someone on hand with an insulin shot ready.

Green Cola

Score another one for truth in advertising.  An amber cola with a greenish tint, supposedly due to the addition of ginseng, but more likely due to an abundance of food coloring and nothing better to do with it.

Rating: 3/5

About as average as they come.  It's just your run-of-the mill cola with a dash of ginseng.

CC Lemon

YES.  Being a foreigner in the summertime in Japan can be difficult.  For one thing, your scrotum leaks salt water like James Cameron's "Titanic" on rewind, and worse still, lemonade, as Americans understand it, never really caught on.  CC Lemon is a radiant lighthouse of hope in a sea of ballsweat.

Rating: 4/5

CC Lemon boasts 70 lemons worth of vitamin C in a 500 mL bottle, but who gives a shit unless you're in the British Navy circa 1600.  What really matters is that this stuff is good.  It's just like carbonated lemonade.  Sweet and sour, CC Lemon somehow strikes the balance that no Chinese restaurant ever could, and contains a lot fewer rat droppings.

Fanta

There's no way to even begin to do justice to the Fanta catalog in this one single update, so just believe me when I say that Fanta's soft drink line has many, many, many entries--and they're all good.  Except...

Fanta FunMix

I imagine this ill-conceived amalgamation had an origin story similar to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but with much less pleasing results.  Everything about this is an eyesore, from the clearly amphetamine-bender inspired bottle art to the broken-toilet-in-the-busiest-station-in-Tokyo color of the beverage itself.

Rating: 2/5

This stuff's a mess, and it's nothing you haven't already tasted a thous times filling your Big Gulp in a moment of 8-year-old eclecticism.  What a disappointment.

Mets

"Beisbol been bery bery good to me."  If you get that, by the way, leave a comment.  Mets is the little drink that could.  Whereas other drinks on this list, like Skal Ramune and Sweet Kiss, were better in hindsight because of my change in personal taste, Mets used to be better because of a change in volume.  During the summer of 2008, Mets could no longer be bought in the standard 355 mL can, but instead could only be found in a stubby 250 mL bottle-can, possibly due to the global saddening efforts of the evil Dr. Mopey.

Rating: 5/5 4/5

Dr. Mopey: Get in here, Moodswing, I need you!

Moodswing: Yes, Your Depressedness?

Dr. Mopey: Operation: Melted Ice Cream Cone is going perfectly, but there's still far too much joy in the world.  At this rate I'll never darken all eight Pearls of Hope.

Moodswing: B-b-but, Dr. Mopey, picnic rainouts are up 23%, and there's bean a steady increase in lonely-puppy dogs in pet store windows!  Our Grief-goons are out picking daisy petals to "he loves me not" status 'round-the-clock!

Dr. Mopey: It's not enough, Moodswing.  We need something more.  Something truly upsetting, like the time the scrappy hometown heroes lost the big game to the rich, well-organized team from up-town.

Moodswing: But sir, Sunnygrove High doesn't play Winthrop Manner Prep ever since the school system re-districted.

Dr. Mopey: I know that, you numbskull, it was an example!  But I have a plan.  Look through the crystal ball.

Moodswing: The Sore-Eye Scry?  But why?

Dr. Mopey: Look at him, Moodswing.  Look at that blissful smile as he sips that grapefruity nectar from the green-and-yellow can, partaking of that refreshing crispness, perfectly balanced to be not-too-sweet, but with a hint of citrusy tang.  Look at him.  Like he doesn't even live in a world of kittens with bandaged paws, or where Ms. Smiley's Fudge Shoppe isn't three weeks away from foreclosure.

Moodswing: Turn it off, Vile Prince of Prozac!  Turn it off!  Haunt me with these blissful visions no longer!

Dr. Mopey: Rob him of that joy, Moodswing.  Shrink his distraction from this world of scraped knees and spilled milk.  If you need me, I'll be meditating in the Gloom Room.

Moodswing: One question, Your Glowership, how much should the smaller size cost?  Should there be a discount?

Dr. Mopey: No, Moodswing.  Charge him the same.

Mets Wild Charge:

Here it is, and I saved the worst for last.  As though Mets couldn't get any more patently offensive or any more clearly in cahoots with the League of Extraordinary Grumpymen, they heaped on the last final straw and then seventeen more bales upon the back of some poor farmer boy's lovable old camel, probably with some cute name like "Humperdink," crushing it pitifully and forcing Ma to sell the family farm to make room for a new parking lot for Winthrop Manner's Seal Clubbery.

Rating: -50/5

This stuff is so bad, I could barely finish a third of it.  Following the mets de-bottle of '08, we though the worst was over.  For two grueling years, we endured the outrageous prices, and it finally looked like all that hardship would mean something when a reasonably priced 500mL Mets product bearing the subtitle "Wild Charge" hit store shelves a couple months ago.  Little did we realize the subtitle was referring to the haste with which you make for the bathroom after your first swig.  It's like bobbing for grapefruits in a citrus farm's outhouse.  As if the revolting, powdered grapefruit compound mixed with sugar-water flavor wasn't bad enough, it's artificial sugar-water, thanks to the 0-calorie guarantee on the label.  This stuff hits your tongue like a freight train full of lemon-scent Pine-Sol and despair.  Truly, truly a convincing argument against both the existence of a loving god and justice.  An abomination of everything pure and good and decent in the world, Mets Wild Charge is the Anakin Skywalker of the soft drink universe.  The Attack of the Clones Anakin.  It is a horrible, horrible, horrible product.

Definitely pick some up if you're ever in the 'Pan.