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This show is also known as: “Because Japan is weird?”
Here is something that matters to me. It’s a podcast called Fast Karate of the Gentleman, and this is my attempt at a definitive statement on why it’s been such an important part of life for the past seven or so years… I hope it comes off as intended.
I didn’t really make it clear on the show, speaking of the podcast’s general effects rather than its effect on me: Fast Karate is educational. I wouldn’t be where I am now intellectually and emotionally without them.
One of the issues that used to plague video-game criticism was ‘are games art?’ Fueled in part by Roger Ebert, but mostly by terrible games making up popular perception. So now it’s high time for a similar evaluation: is Fast Karate art? This is the natural next question, given the episode’s content, and it arose after I’d done the recording. I’m not sure it’s well-formed enough to be a part of the show. But this is what I have:
It’s a 1:1 expression of ideas, where two guys are just saying their ideas, as opposed to translating them into some abstract medium. But whether or not it is art, well… The Battle Beyond Planet X is all about taking different media as if, imagine, they were all equal, by function of being all different. So in evaluating art, what is so much more important to me is the weight of the form, rather than the form itself. I like what they say, and I don’t care how they say it. Well, I do — I care that it’s this way.
This is hopefully a primer, so if you’re looking for more, here are a few episodes I’ve kept track of as ‘favorite’ — I relistened to many episodes over the course of my still life, and remembered a few of the jokes, and later discovered which episodes they belonged to.
“But the Wang Lingers”
“This Baby’s Chomping at the Bit!”
“Finish the Fight (You Can Win)”
“Damn You Korean Grocer, You Are Working for Evil”
“Don’t go +20 on Mercantilism!”
“… What game are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
