iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Sorry for the lack of posts recently: summer (Obon) vacation starts Wednesday, and things at work have been really crazy leading up to it. Plus I've been redoing some things in my apartment (getting a new 4K pivot-friendly TV, so I can finally play shooting games in tate/vertical mode). More soon.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Here's the PC Engine controller (circuit board safely stowed away). This is the non-turbo version. After a lot of work, it looks much better than it did when I rescued it from the store. But it still needs more painstaking mold removal and the yellowed back needs a hydrogen peroxide treatment too.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Sorry for the lack of posts this weekend. Had to do an emergency refurbishment on these two (old battery corrosion threatening to cross into the motherboard). They're fine now. Also trying to save a PC Engine controller with really bad mold stains. Regular posting will resume shortly.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Just to be clear, I live in Northern Japan and things are fine here, no need to worry about me.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Yes, they had a horrible quake ten years ago, too, we were talking about it at work today.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Unfortunately work is crazy this week and I also have a trip and job interview Friday I need to prepare for, so probably no posting until the weekend. But here's an old thread that suggests some of what I'll be discussing when I return to Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale and Oshii's Angel's Egg then.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I've been waiting for this very cool piece on pre-Viking ship burials to come out since Christina reported it out a few weeks ago. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

nationalgeographic.com

New evidence shows 'Viking burials' predate Vikings

The discovery of 1,300-year-old ship nails in a burial mound in Norway raises new questions about who was actually entombed there.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

The new fan for my Sega Dreamcast finally came, so I'm going to spend my evening installing that, greasing the GD-ROM drive rails, etc. But this old thread from the spring suggests where I'll be taking my Angel's Egg/Mysterium Paschale thread when I get back to it. Holy Saturday Jesus is so done:

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Yeah, and it helped encourage backtracking in the Metroidvania fashion, where new abilities like Mario's different hats can unlock new paths.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I am going to play Pokemon Stadium down the road, but I don't have the the Pokemon Game Boy games yet, and I have some other RPGs I need to finish before those, too.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I haven't played that one again yet, but it's on my list. Once the HDMI adapter I ordered gets here, I'll be playing Super Mario 64, Ocarina, and Star Fox/Shadows of the Empire first. Then maybe the Banjo games. And I really want to play Perfect Dark, but haven't found a good deal on it yet.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

1 Corinthians 13 appears twice in Ghost, but Oshii also invokes it in Angel's Egg in a baptismal way. As Balthasar writes: "Baptism is a “copy of [Christ's] death”, uniting us with him; Christ’s death is understood not only as something “historical” but as a “present” & effectual reality." (277)

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

What's very interesting about these overlaps is Balthasar writes about Christ and Mary and the Theo-Drama of the Passion; meanwhile, Oshii cites playwright Tennessee Williams as an inspiration for his mystical film. In other words, both are thinking through the Cross and Christianity dramatically!

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Balthasar will further develop this distance between the Father and the Son, but at this point I'd like to note how it helps to understand the dichotomy between the Christ figure and God the Father in Oshii's 'Angel's Egg,' e.g., in shots like these (note the holy dove feathers):

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

The apocalyptic music here really drives home this demonic aspect: "The paradox mentioned by Revelation acquires concrete relevance: the hostile power that Jesus sees “falling like lightning from heaven” is cast down to the earth and manifests “great wrath for his time is short”." (Balthasar, 155)

youtu.be

Angel's Egg Soundtrack ~ 11. Angel's Fossil

YouTube video by Angel's Egg Soundtrack

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

At one point, the girl even empties out some wine/blood from a bottle (Eucharistic overtones here) to make room for water, which she later offers the boy/Christ figure. But he has no need of such water, for as he also says in John 4, "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst."

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

By the way, the animation of the girl's hair here may have influenced this scene from Final Fantasy VIII (Tetsuya Nomura designed Edea even before Final Fantasy VII and based her appearance on Yoshitaka Amano's art style--Amano worked on both Angel's Egg and Final Fantasy, of course):

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Regarding Marian evocations, early on in Angel's Egg (1985) we have this encounter between the boy/Christ figure and the girl, clearly modeled on paintings of the Annunciation (notice him holding the egg out to her):

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

This final shot sequence is Oshii's response to the end of Tarkovsky's Solaris, which similarly zooms out from an image of the Prodigal Son & Father. In contrast to this male/male pair, Oshii has his female character meet a male Christ figure, evoking Christian notions of Mary, the Church, etc...

youtu.be

Solaris (1972) - Ending

YouTube video by heyou

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Oshii: そうですね。新約聖書の世界というのも、いわばイエスとの出会いが、いろんな人に宗教的回心をもたらすという、出あいの話なわけです。 "That's right. The world of the New Testament is also, as it were, a story of encounters, in which an encounter with Jesus brings about religious conversion in various people."

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

新約聖書の世界というのも、いわばイエスとの出会いが、いろんな人に宗教的回心をもたらすという、出あいの話なわけです。 ["The world of the New Testament is a "story of encounter" (出会い/deai): that is to say, where encounters with Jesus bring about a religious conversion of heart in various people."] - Mamoru Oshii

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台羽正 @tadashidaiba.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This happens to Aquinas as well: as a symbol they become more like a battering ram than an invitation to ask questions. “Stop talking; I don’t want to hear this” becomes their central role or function.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Vagrant Story. Another Square masterpiece on the original PlayStation.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Yup. First Secret of Mana was on Game Boy and it's just as good if not better than Link's Awakening. Game Boy also has Metroid II and some great Batman games, the Mario Land trilogy, etc...

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Just share this link and done. Also, if anyone doesn't know about Sin and Punishment, then their opinion on the N64 is probably not a very informed one...

retro-sanctuary.com

Top 100 Best N64 Games Ever

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Rob @greaterhermit.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

When you spend a quarter on FF7 and play 160 hours but then you die against Ruby Weapon and have to spend another quarter and start over 🥲

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Boethius always comes back, haunting the incarcerated present like a ghost.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I've only read the Consolation, too, with Chaucer's translation. Sorry!

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Emily @suika.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

screenshot of 11 year old YouTube comment that says

"I'm 12 and I've understood nightcore and anime since I was 10. My generation only plays Xbox360 and Call of Duty all day. I guess you could call me and everyone else here who is 14 or younger survivor's of the swag war."

Below that, a 22-hour-old Instagram comment from ih8myh0e:

"stolen valor. he never served in the swag war, i hate when people do ts. i had buddies who genuinely lost their swag in that war."

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Boethius always comes back, haunting the incarcerated present like a ghost.

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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

What the fuck kind of shit is this. How desperate to create legal fictions and create PR wins can the administration possibly be that they're going to deny that people KIA and WIA were part of the Iran conflict.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

With this move, Oshii suggests, Balthasar-like, that the lowly Mustard Seed in the Parable is Christ himself, humiliated, slain and buried. Indeed, the Christ Figure's reference to the black horizon and heaving earth suggest the portents of his Crucifixion. His fingers also mirror the Iconography.

youtu.be

Tree - Angel's Egg

YouTube video by fishermechs

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

The Tree behind the Iconographic Son alludes to the Tree of Life/Oak of Mamre--but also looks forward to the Crucifixion. Here Oshii juxtaposes the Crucifixion with his Tree of Life in his own powerful way, superimposing the Christ Figure's hand with its obviously bandaged stigmata over the Tree.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Oshii's Christ Figure, of course, carries a Cross, as we saw above. Meanwhile, his Tree with birds in its branches recalls the Parable of the Mustard Seed from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It's also important to remember that a Tree appears behind Christ in Byzantine Iconography of the Trinity...

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Regarding "the Eye of God," Balthasar also quotes Byzantine hymnographer Romanos the Melodist: "I looked into the abyss, and cried, ‘Father, where are you?’ And when I looked from the unmeasurable world to the eye of God, it was an empty socket, without foundation, that stared back at men."

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Throughout Angel's Egg Oshii also depicts a silent, shadowy realm of death. This breathtakingly beautiful sequence is especially notable, with Psalm 23 resonances: "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

youtu.be

Chase | Tenshi no tamago

YouTube video by black magick hooligan

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

So Angel's Egg begins & ends with the Christ Figure being sent off/abandoned by/returning to a giant ball of light (representing God the Father), surrounded by the statues of saints (representing the Church). At the end of the film are also feathers, representing the (separate/absent) Holy Spirit.

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Alucard (悪魔城下町) @akumajoukamachi.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

This will be my thread on Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg (1985) & Hans Urs von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale (1969) + Theo-Drama, Part IV (1980), which I posted on before. I've been researching Balthasar's reception in Japan through Sophia University in the 1970s/80s, so I might discuss that, as well.

youtu.be

Tree - Angel's Egg

YouTube video by fishermechs

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