Dryftco

I’d like to present to everyone the first letter of many that I’ve penned. This letter is part of a series entitled “An American Position.” In these letters I will be highlighting an issue and subsequently detailing how we have arrived where we are today using facts. I will then present the solution favored most by the Constitution of the United States.

First, it is important to recognize that Government is not our economic “knight in shining armor.” Simply put, you cannot solve the problem with more of the problem. To resolve this crisis and prevent it from happening again, you must get to the root: overregulation by the federal government. The Community Reinvestment Act is the main proponent. The CRA gives grants to financial institutions that loaned money to individuals who had low income or bad credit. This act was passed to prevent ‘redlining’, a practice where loans were denied based on the relative wealth of a neighborhood. However, the practice of redlining originated with the Federal Housing Authority in the 1930s. We have a history of passing regulation for problems of previous government regulation. This has created a spiral downward commonly known as the “Burst of the Housing Bubble.”

Supplemental to this problem was the government pumping money into the housing system thus keeping prices artificially high. This is high-school economics: Supply and Demand. In most of the country, there was an excess of houses. As supply increased, the amount of people currently seeking a home decreased. This caused housing prices to fall. Since people had been using their houses as a vehicle for retirement, this lowered the amount of money they had to retire on.  If we still practiced laissez-faire business in this country, the free market would have solved this problem on its own: Prices would’ve gone down. As prices go down, less people would be involved in building new houses and would instead be switched over to repairing or reclaiming existing ones. As demand for housing increases again, so too would production of new houses.

On top of all of this, our government is now trying to rush a new stimulus through Congress. This package places us on a slippery slope to socialism. Redistributing wealth is comparable to a doctor telling a cancer patient that cigarette abstinence will cure them. The government is purchasing a stake in private companies which is nationalization. If our current government cannot run this country without a massive deficit, why should we trust them to run a company? The common answer would be that “We need to save jobs.” The goal of an economy is not jobs: it is production. Jobs are merely a byproduct of production. A job can be to simply “dig a hole one day and fill it the next” or whatever the equivalent may be at a desk. This type of job does nothing for our production and instead raises costs with no positive byproduct. Where is the government getting this money? Taxpayers like you and me: People who may be reeling from loss of a house and/or job.

In closing, we would do well to remember how this country got economically strong. The great innovators in our economy are entrepreneurs; not government. From Franklin to Ford we have a strong tradition of great minds innovating the way we do business and in the end, improving our quality of living. Whenever the government over-regulates it becomes more unlikely that we’ll have another great innovator in our time. If we adhere to the Constitution and the advice of the founding fathers, we can again return to a time where innovation is encouraged by the free market. Eventually, someone will invent a better product than what is currently available. This benefits the inventor, consumer, and workers. It is this spirit of Americanism that is commonly referred to the “American Dream.” You are free to rise and fall based on your own merits.

I’m here today to pen my first anime review. It is of the most recent Anime I have watched in full. The title is Shakugan no Shana. I’d place this in an Drama/Action/Romance category, in that order. More after the jump.

Summary:

Shakugan no Shana combines slice-of-life with extraordinary powers to create a quite-not-so-magical-girl series. The series itself is very dark if you haven’t seen Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni or somewhat dark if you have. It deals with a gallon-sized heaping of human nature and behavior involving death, romance, “existance”, and even forays briefly into love vs lust in a depraved, incestious manner. If you can get past these things, you’re in for a treat of a series. It is paced adequately, although somewhat slow in the middle. It starts and ends both with a bang, leaving you satisfied but just wanting more.

Story: 8.5

(Characters: 9, PlotSpan: 7)

The story in Shakugan no Shana is definitely one of it’s strong points. The characters are incredibly well done and will leave a lasting impression on your memory. You have the key female stereotypes such as tsundere (Shana), moe (Yoshida), and drunkard (Marjery Daw). The male stereotypes are here too in the forms of best-friend love rival, ordinary guy with something special, and the generic friends. The great thing about this is that the stereotypes play to that role but are much deeper as characters. The generic friends become surprisingly not-so-generic with their own subplots that end up influencing the main plot in a great way. The moe-girl takes her bashful crush a little too far and discovers a big secret. The tsundere girl actually has a good reason to act how she does that isn’t involved with fan service. There are many examples of even minor characters (such as Yuji’s mother) having a unmeasurable impact on the main story.

Music: 7.5

(Background: 8, Op/Ed: 7)

The music in Shana is very good for what it is meant to do. The overarching themes are well done while the background music is just varied enough to keep it from being repetitive. The opening and ending themes (especially the first ending theme) are somewhat memorable, but overall felt generic j-popish. The exception is the first ending theme, which stuck in my mind and I generally don’t like j-pop. The “love theme” is also really well done and is used excellently throughout the series. The “Shana” arrangement, an amalgation of the various themes found in the show is very representative of how the different themes are arranged to create an excellent little piece.

Animation: 8.25

(Foreground: 8, Background: 8.5)

The animation is very stylized and sleek, just what you would expect from J.C. Staff. The special effects are used sparingly and very well. Much talk has been made of the cinder effect that surrounds Shana when she goes into “Fame Haze” mode and it is well deserved. The effect itself is excellent and never gets old. The other visual effects, such as the fighting, spellcasting, and others are also done very well. The quality of the effects was attended to moreso than the quality which is a welcome change for a barrage of low-key special effects.

Overall: 8.1

(Story: 8.5, Music: 7.5, Animation: 8.25)

Overall, Shakugan no Shana was a great surprise. I was expecting a mediocre series that would get me by in a slow time. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this diamond in the rough. While popular in Japan, the series has yet to catch on here in the States. Shakugan no Shana is a series that has worked it’s way into my top ten amongst other titles such as Card Captor Sakura, Abenobashi, Evangelion, Code Geass, and a few others. If you like a good mix of drama, action, romance, and mystery, it’d be hard to resist a series as good as this. It may seem ordinary on the surface, but it’s execution is far from it. I have to give it 8 Nietno No Shana-s out of 10.

Dryftco is back! Over the past few months, much time has been spent rewriting archaic library code to modernize our backend. While I still enjoy coding, I pretty much do it as a hobby at this point. I’m retrofitting this site to be a personal blog for here on out.