I agree to disagree, okay?

>_< When it comes to things like anime, I have to admit, I like to argue. It's always fun to think that you're an expert in something, but of course, it's always sad when you witness this sort of thing from the other side of the fence; that is to say, when someone goes on and on about something, claiming expertise, yet they have obvious fallacies in their arguments or statements.

I browse Dies Gaudii every now and then, and Anime-Myth linked to it, so I decided to check it out again. A lot of the stuff there is reasonable, and clears up a lot of frequent misconceptions that SM fans/Moonies can have about the series/manga/etc. There's just ONE thing that really, seriously infuriates me-- and it's so utterly simple.

Surname. It means 'family name.' For the lazy, LAST NAME. However, Ian MIller, creator and maintainer of DG, has a point in saying that terms like 'first name' and 'last name' are ambiguous. So let's put it this way. My GIVEN NAME ('first name') is Meredith. My surname/family name is Sweet. One of the common tidbits about Japanese knowledge is that they 'reverse' their names; ergo, you'd think my name "in Japan" would be Sweet, Meredith. Sort of like how our names are on school attendance lists. WRONG! Foriegn, NON-JAPANESE names are always left the way they are. I would still be called Meredith Sweet in Japan, though it's not uncommon for Japanese people trying to be respectful to me to call me Sweet-san, rather than Meri-san.

Now, onto the DG part of it. DG claims (though it does provide reasonable evidence) that the Sailor Starlights all share the SAME given name (first name), but are NOT at all related, are not brothers, etc. There are some idiotic places that have foolish evidence AGAINST this, like "why would Naoko have done something so uncreative" which is an opinion; a mangaka can do whatever she wants, because it makes sense to HER. But I still don't get why "Seiya Kou" is such a controversy.

Evidence against the fact (that Kou really are the 3 Light's given names)
* In the manga (written evidence) all the lights are shown as having 'Kou' listed last. Following the traditional Japanese method of Family Name First, Given Name Last, then Kou WOULD be each of the 3 Light's first name.

Rebuttal:
* In many other written sources, idol names are listed the 'Western' way, with Given Name First, Family Name Last. Besides, even if the names themselves are Japanese in origin (this is disputable with the usage of katakana over the kanji; however, katakana CAN and IS used for Japanese-origin names, for a number of reasons I won't get into here...), there's no reason why the Starlights' "cover" as a group of idol "brothers" would be debated by something as simple as a name order misnomer.

Evidence to the contrary (yet again):
* Everyone in the series refers to the Lights as Seiya-kun, Yaten-kun, and Taiki-kun. This includes Usagi herself, who almost ALWAYS refers to people (close to her or NOT) by their first name. There are a few exceptions, however, so she can't be cited as evidence. And likewise, if people (wanting to be respectful to the trio or not) called them 'Kou-kun' or 'Kou-san,' it would cause much confusion, wouldn't it? So those can't be cited as evidence.

Rebuttal:
* But in the episode titles, Usagi and the other senshi are referred to by their first names (unless there is a pun going on, but since Usagi always announces the titles, they are always verbalized anyway). This applies to Seiya too; and since Usagi's just announcing the title of the episode, why would she have a need to be respectful by referring to Seiya as 'Kou?'

Again:
* You can't claim that Naoko was being uncreative in naming all the Lights 'Kou.' Though she IS reported to have said that the Lights are NOT brothers, this could be interpreted a variety of ways:

• Did she mean REALLY, as in, when they were on Kinmokusei? We know that already, since the Lights revealed to Princess Kakyuu that they were using a cover to find her faster. They had to pretend to be a group of people working together, popular with LOTS of people, especially girls-- and what better way to do that than to be in a boy band? And what better way for a boy band to form than 3 brothers?
  
  
• Did she mean literally, even on Earth? Again, you could say we knew that already, since the Lights aren't human. We don't know the rules of gender on Kinmokusei, but from Naoko's own artwork and commentary, it seems as though the Lights were originally female on Kinmokusei (and are as well on Earth, in the manga, and are merely crossdressing; Tin Nyanko even makes it a point to chastise Usagi for associating with "girls who pretend to be boys"), but they gained/had the ability to change gender when necessary (well, at least in the anime version they did). So, they might not have been able to pass off as DNA-related biological brothers... but then again, what could you say about Usagi and Chibi-Usa? They sure aren't cousins... The whole 'brothers' thing was a cover, and no one ever bothered to dispute it. Whether it was LITERALLY true or not doesn't matter. However, their birthdays are listed as follows: February 8, 1979 (Yaten); May 30, 1979 (Taiki); July 30, 1979 (Seiya). There is a little over a 3 month gap between Yaten and Taiki's birthday, and only 2 months between Taiki and Seiya. Even if these dates are "converted to Earth reckoning," and Kinmokusei's people don't follow the same orbit/maternity periods as human females, it's still a bit ridiculous.
  
  
• Ian Miller pointed out that since the band name is 'The Three Lights,' and all the boys share the same name (be it a family name or a given name) of 'Kou,' this makes sense. It could be a nice, tidy coincidence, them all having the same first name and then being "Hey, cool, we like music, there's three of us, we all are called 'Kou,' which means 'Light,' so let's call ourselves 'The Three Lights!'" but they were under the COVER of being brothers. Brothers usually have the same surname. Besides, the Lights had to have done their research before they decided to become mega stars, so they must have known the concepts of 'family,' and such. Besides, they recieved a lot of tabloid coverage, and would it have been juicy for some reporter to find a 'Seiya' family, a 'Taiki' family, and a 'Yaten' family claiming blood relation? But if all the boys kept to their 'brothers Kou' story, using Western ordering, then they could claim that they are the last 3 of their of their family, and no one else is left. This closes up THAT loophole; as for the birthdates, they could always be "cousins" that have always thought of each other as brothers.
  

Quite a rant, eh? Well, I'll keep surfing, maybe you'll hear more from me. I really have to do the dishes soon though.

Well, okay, fine.

Ugh, this is weird. Everything's weird. I'm seriously nocturnal now, waking up at 8:30 or 9:30 (as in tonight's case) at night, and going to sleep again 12 hours later. I miss calls from Lonnie at various hours of the day, whether I'm sleeping or merely away from my phone. I do sort of want to talk to him, maybe even call back, but then I chicken out.

Okay, and then I was stupid enough to bring up Jonathan while in a chat with Joemi, and of course he asked me who he was; he'd read about him a few times in my LJ. Two things come out of this: 1) I need to keep my big mouth shut, and 2) I need to stick by my own policies. Those two might inadvertantly contradict themselves, since one of my big policies is honesty... but then, it's not lying if you don't mention someone or something, right? I was really trying to save face, and besides, I'm so confused about everything right now anyway... seriously, I honestly don't FEEL like Jonathan's my boyfriend. Maybe I just want to be single again, but then I'm sort of chained down in that invisible, metaphorical sense.

All the same, I can't help but think I've been needlessly vicious again. But wait, recall-- Joemi's the one that kicked ME off his friend's list, and hasn't put ME back on since. He says it's because he doesn't want to read it, there'd be "too much information" and stuff. Why then, does he bother talking or hanging out with me at all!? You know, this journal is my emotional outburst source, it's where I talk about anything and everything, and it would be nice for those people I consider my friends to give me a shout out every now and then, just to let me know they understand, sympathize, or care! Something! Even if they disagreed with me and thought I was being a total bubblehead! I try to do the same, you know! *sigh*

Working on Golden Apple right now... might have bitten off more than I can chew (har har) by taking the entire chapter up to the point where Endymion makes it into the Garden of the Hesperides. BLAAAH. But I'm going to try, I just don't think I have quite the same "style-flair" as Bonnie. =P

Ugh, XENU made me a new report on all the broken links on A.I.org, and it looks like I have a LOT of work to do. Seriously, I need to figure out how to appropriately structure all my sites as they're hosted locally, because I keep ending up with a bunch of file:///C|Documents... jargon in my links from my webpages, because they're saved locally, but I have to link to them remotely... @_@

Got Brooke's wedding invitation today. Just as she said, the stamp was on the wrong side of the envelope. They'll still send it, right? It is legal postage... and if worse comes to worse, I can cheat the system and not put my return address, so they'll HAVE to send it to her, regardless of whether the postage is accepted or not (the infamous "return to sender" rule). Lots of stuff happening soon... there's the going-away party for the PPLs, there's (I know I'm forgetting something else)... uhm... stuff. Yeah.

GAWD, I cannot wait until the first volume of HYD comes out from Viz... unfortunately, all the places that have been doing scanlations all this time have closed down because of it, which makes no sense to me, since Viz hasn't released the later volumes yet. It just pisses me off, but I guess I have to start scrimmaging for $5.50 until I can snag the good volumes (i.e. the steamy Domoyoji/Makino volumes!)

Damn CCSF *still* hasn't got my grades, it seems, which pisses me OFF! I have a September deadline to get my application in, and I have been looking forward to getting this DONE AND OVER WITH for so long, this only serves to infuriate me MORE!

2 entries thus far for Mamo Day, and if I FINISH THIS part of Golden Apple already, then I can work on my other submissions! ;_; Not fair that Stef's rule is for 30 separate AUTHORS, rather than 30 separate stories, because I'd find a way to fill that quotient on my own!

I should play Myst Exile now that I have an idea what to look for... and finish watching damned Initial D already. Burn CDs to clear up space on my comp, wokr on various things... I'm just not feeling too creative right now, I'm kind of blaaah! Which sucks, I never thought I could be bored online. I mean yeesh, 11 hours... maybe I should snuggle up on the couch outside and watch Casablanca and the end of the Maltese Falcon.

Oh yeah! My dad got a teaching job in Alameda! YAY! I'm glad he's feeling better, and he got a job that he wanted and is definitely going to be great at. I really want to see him again soon. Maybe next weekend... Yeah. =} Ugh, I feel like someone poured molasses all over me and then left me inside a plain, white tiled room with the humidity of New York during the summer filtering in through the air. I have to go, I'm getting achey and restless.