In between “these look so pretty” and “this is a pointed message for a specific person” is the flower language of the Kiznaiver ending sequence. Tasked with closing out a series that identifies common anime character archetypes as the new seven deadly sins, the concluding piece of each episode features the four main female characters — presumably because they have a higher marketability than the male characters — and assigned flowers, in addition to flashes of various other flower species.

Kiznaiver‘s assortment of colorful characters trapped together à la The Breakfast Club — the former is far more hamfisted than the latter — are pressured by their captors to reveal the one secret they don’t want others to know in a forced bonding session to strengthen their ties. The flowers assigned to them in the ending fill in subtle details about their respective characters and potential roles within the series.

Rose: Noriko Sonozaki

Noriko Sonozaki is a part of this ending sequence, which is of particular note as she’s one of the overseers of the kiznaiver system rather than an unwilling participant in the social experiment. Her flowers resemble carnations at first glance, but are later revealed as a bouquet of white, green, and orange roses, more formally arranged than any of the other flowers shown.

While her manner is dour and serious, Sonozaki’s flower bouquet is overwhelmingly cheery by most interpretations of rose colors. White represents purity and innocence — often used in wedding arrangements to symbolize a new beginning — while orange stands for excitement and passion. Should orange be interpreted as a yellow color, the meaning changes slightly to a joyful friendship. Lastly, green, which unlike blue is a color that exists naturally although many are dyed, is said to invite renewal and rejuvenation of spirit. Together, her flowers herald a new path in life and new relationships. This is an interesting contrast with her role in bringing this group of kiznaivers together, since they are not presumably the first group of kiznaivers and this is another attempt at attaining a specific bond that she alludes to during her closing speech in the series’ third episode.

Marigold: Honoka Maki

Initially aloof with an air of perfection and disinterest, Honoka Maki is a girl who possesses a self-described “bad personality.” She confesses to killing someone during her introduction before brushing it off as a joke; however, the series continues to visually hint at Maki’s overwhelming guilt. Kiznaiver’s second episode shows a distraught Maki conveniently wandering into a morgue, haunted by a dead girl with short hair.

This girl later appears in the series’ ending alongside Maki while the latter cradles what appears to be a marigold to her chest. Of the many interpretations of a marigold, the most common are related to pain or the death of a loved one. Victorian-era flower language links it to the ill-treatment of a loved one, while marigolds are still commonly used to celebrate Mexico’s Day of the Dead, which honors the deceased. Maki’s personal issues appear rooted in guilt over this one girl in her past. While her part in the girl’s apparent death is unknown, this incident is something that Maki is obviously still chained to, which is further reflected by the marigold flower.

Daisy: Chidori Takashiro

Above all else, Chidori Takashiro wishes to return to her childhood, which she has built up to others as the best time of her life. Admitting in Kiznaiver‘s second episode that she loved Katsuhira Agata when the two were children growing up together, Takashiro wants Agata to go back to the happy kid that she remembers, rather than the husk of a human being who appears in the scope of the series’ timeline. Any viewer with half a brain will realize that she still loves Agata regardless, and nearly every action she takes is in service of returning Agata to “who he was” — the person that Takashiro loved.

Not-so-coincidentally, daisies represent a return to childhood or innocence. Takashiro appears to carry a small bunch of purple and white daisies which further symbolize innocence, purity, and true love.

Blue-eyed grass: Nico Niyama

Of all the flowers appearing in the Kiznaiver ending, the fake eccentric Nico Niyama’s are appropriately the most difficult to identify. Specifically six-petaled and blueish purple, they most resemble blue-eyed grass which are wildflowers closely-related to irises. In other images Niyama’s flowers appear to be blue clematis, inferring a beautiful, artistic mind.

Other featured flowers

Each Kiznaiver leading lady carries a specific flower in the ending, but they’re also ascribed a sequence of other flowers followed by a quick cut to their eyes.

Sonozaki is given a sole peony before the ending shows her eyes. Often used in ukiyo-e art, peonies are said to represent bravery and are seen as a masculine flower that symbolizes a less-disciplined, flippant attitude towards things, regardless of consequence.

While her personal flower of the daisy is fairly straightforward, Takashiro is given cala lilies, six-petaled purple wildflowers that resemble Niyama’s bouquet, and daffodils, all with headier meanings. Cala lilies are divisive, sometimes representing the utmost purity, nobility, and holiness but also an untimely death, pride, and lust. Daffodils plead for a return of affection or love, which is often ultimately unrequited. This could be taken as a hint that, in spite of the supposed purity of her love for Agata, Takashiro’s devotion will only lead to her downfall, due to her pride and what Sonozaki describes as an annoyingly self-righteous nature.

I initially had erroneously identified these as plum blossoms. They’re actually far more likely to be a type of magnolia (thank you, whitecat). The magnolia is another fairly traditional flower that is interestingly ascribed to Niyama, a person who wishes to divorce herself from her wealthy family. Magnolias are sometimes thought to represent the utmost in feminine beauty and innate nobility. As one of the oldest flowering plants, magnolias are said to additionally stand for strength and grace through the ages.

Last in the flower sequence is Maki, with a difficult series of flowers to place. Her initial dark red flower appears to be a rare orchid, while the cherry blossom look-alikes only have four petals, hinting at a dogwood tree rather than a flowering cherry. Cherry blossoms are the shortcut icon to the Japanese feeling of mono no aware — the transience of life or ephemeral sensitivity — where dogwood flowers have an odd tie to Christianity and are said to resemble the crucifixion. In both cases, these hints would tie back to Maki’s extreme guilt towards whatever happened between her and the unnamed purple-haired girl of her past.

There have been various forms of inception pizza — pizza inside a delivery box made of pizza; a slice that comes with smaller pizza slices on top — and now the Cinnamon Snail wants in on the fun. At its stall at the Pennsy food court, the cult vegan-doughnut-maker is selling a $7 Sparkle Dazzle Rainbow doughnut that's stuffed with a maple-raspberry filling and topped with miniature doughnuts ... which have even tinier doughnuts on top. Ah, America.

[Gothamist]

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: sweets, cinnamon snail, doughnuts

Locations across the country will be able to order the melted cheese and bacon burger

Shake Shack is debuting a new burger special on Friday nationwide — but for regulars of the original location at Madison Square Park, the Bacon CheddarShack might look a little familiar. When the flagship location reopened last summer after renovations, Danny Meyer and co. offered the ParkBurger in celebration, a burger topped with bacon and melted cheese sauce. Eater resident carnivore Nick Solares named it one of the best new burgers of 2015, even though they took it off the menu in October. But luckily for fans of this creation, the burger was such a hit that the company decided to rework it for locations across the country, says culinary director Mark Rosati. "That burger was born on Madison Square Park," he says.

Like the ParkBurger, the Bacon CheddarShack features Shake Shack's signature beef blend patty, double-smoked Niman Ranch bacon, and a melted cheese sauce that's unique from the one that comes with fries. But instead of the ParkBurger's gruyere-style Alpine cheese, the new special features a three-year aged white cheddar from Wisconsin, Rosati says. They start off with cream, add vegetables and spices, and emulsify it at the end with the cheese. "The idea is to create something very flavorful, very juicy, and very simplistic," he says. The New York-borne burger will be available at all U.S. Shake Shack locations, with the exception of stadiums, on Friday for at least the summer.

Friday will also mark the debut of another particularly New York special for Shake Shack: the Blueberry Pie Oh My concrete and shake, which features blueberry pie from the popular Gowanus-based Four & Twenty Blackbirds. It's the first time the bakery's offerings will be available at Shake Shack locations across the country. "That's tremendous for us," Rosati says. "These guys in New York are the industry standard for amazing pie." Sisters Melissa and Emily Elsen, who have been expanding their hit bakery, finally have the capacity to grow with Shake Shack, which will likely hit 100 locations globally this year, Rosati says. "That to us is exactly what we always hope to do with everyone we work with," he says. "When we start working with a new vendor, we want to grow with them."

Both will only be offered for a limited time for now; the company currently does not plan to put it on the menu permanently. "We're just doing it to have fun," Rosati says.

Serena Dai

Serena Dai

A single Bacon CheddarShack burger is $6.89, and a double is $9.69.  The Blueberry Pie Oh My! is $4.59 for a single scoop and $6.79 for a double; a shake is $5.79.

Whenever the typical English-speaking anime or manga sees the word doujinshi, a particular image comes to mind. Typically, doujinshi are associated with fan-parodies of titles both popular and niche, the realm of what-ifs that run the gamut from the silly to the sexy. However, many doujinshi are original works, and Comitia is the largest group of “original-only” doujin events in Japan. I attended Kansai Comitia 48 Osaka recently on May 15, 2016, and it was a fun learning experience. Not only could I feel the creators’ passions, but I also have come to view the importance of doujin events in a different light.

Original Doujinshi

While I am certainly a fan of doujinshi based on existing properties, in many ways original doujinshi are more impressive because they cannot rely on drawing in the fan bases of those works. When I think about it, my first exposure to the idea of doujinshi, the anime adaptation of Comic Party, mainly focused on original works. In that TV series, the main character learns an important lesson: making doujinshi is about what you want to do, not simply what sells. Across dozens of creators, that is exactly the spirit I saw at Kansai Comitia 48.

The event site was laid out roughly according to genre, and when you look at the categories listed it becomes easy to see the variety of interests on display. There was the “Fantasy” section, which was by far the largest, but there were also things like Criticism, Travel, Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen, SF/Mecha, Animals, BL, and so on. The first doujinshi I picked up was a record of the author’s trip to Russia, while my favorite had to be a cute romance about a girl with a bentou box for a head. The handkerchief normally used to wrap a bentou box became the ribbon that accentuated her girlish charm. One table was selling guides to girls’ school uniforms throughout Japan, and the circle that was responsible for it consisted of a mix of both men and women.

What About the 18+ Stuff?

While doujinshi often brings to my pornographic works, the Adult section at Kansai Comitia 48 was rather small. This is not that unusual, because most doujinshi made are in fact not sexual. However, even there the space for doujinshi as a place to explore one’s passions is visible, and one might even argue that it’s where such sentiments are most evident. Many of the 18+ circles were focused on otoko no ko, or boys who look like girls, and one was even solely about handsome bad guys kissing young girls. There was one artist who drew heterosexual josei-style smut, which can be rather uncommon given the sheer amount of BL that exists.

I picked up one adult title at the event, but not necessarily for the reason you might expect. The artist who drew it was actually Kakimoto Kenjirou, a published manga artist in the 1990s whose series, Futarigurashi, ran in Young Jump. It appeared that he was out of the manga game for quite a while, but here he was at Kansai Comitia drawing what he wanted, and the doujinshi I bought was actually a sequel to Futarigurashi. Here was a space where even someone with manga industry experience could continue the stories they wanted to tell, and essentially make “amateur” sequels to their own “professional” works.

A Haven of Lost Drawing Styles

One aspect of Kakimoto’s doujinshi is that, while it didn’t look quite the same as it did in the 90s, he still retained a very 90s style of manga drawing. What’s more, he wasn’t alone. Throughout Kansai Comitia 48, I saw doujinshi with characters that looked like they came from bygone eras of manga and Japanese pop culture. One artist created a giant robot themed after Nagano Prefecture, Naganoizer, and was clearly inspired by 80s anime artists such as Mikimoto Haruhiko (Macross, Gunbuster, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress). Another artist’s style was closer to 70s shoujo legends such as Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko.

In the actual professional manga industry, failing to change one’s styles with the times comes at a risk. While popular creators such as Miuchi Suzue (Glass Mask) or the aforementioned Hagio and Takemiya still draw in the same style as they did in the 1970s, many have clearly made shifts over time that correspond with trends in manga as a whole. For better or worse, events like Comitia are where those older styles can still exist, away from the pressures of having to pick up on what’s popular. While some are able to sell doujinshi at a profit, that is the exception. Most doujin artists make doujinshi purely as passion projects.

Comparing with Artist Alleys in America

I’ve been to quite a few Artist Alleys in American anime conventions, and while you can get a good variety of styles, for the most part I tend to see many similarities in how artists approach works there. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that anime fandom has a rather high turnover rate where many grow out of it as they get older. This is not to say that American anime con artists lack variety, or that they all draw in an “anime” style, but the result is you don’t really get those 80s/90s-style holdouts.

A better comparison would be with the artist alleys at places like New York Comic Con, because you’ll often see artists who are inspired by past generations maintain those styles. For example, you’ll often see artists who love Jack Kirby and aim to maintain his style. They will pepper their drawings with Kirby dots, dynamic poses, and other signature characteristics of the King’s drawings. Similarly, at Kansai Comitia 48, you had artists who still believed in those older styles. Whether it’s because they refuse to adapt or can’t, the result is a window into a different world that is not so much experimental as Indie comics in the US tend to be, but are basically different shades of mainstream from older generations.

—

If you liked this post, consider becoming a sponsor of Ogiue Maniax through Patreon. You can get rewards for higher pledges, including a chance to request topics for the blog.

There's no shortage of fancy doughnuts in New York, but the newest one — a collaboration between the Doughnut Project and nearby butcher shop Hudson & Charles — isn't just a gimmick created as Instagram bait. The $5.25 yeast-raised doughnut is filled with chocolate pastry cream that's whipped with roasted bone marrow, making it taste extra rich and velvety. Plus, the clementine glaze, with orange-infused chocolate shavings, is the perfect complement.

The Doughnut Project, a shop that opened on Morton Street this past October, first released this flavor during its "Meat Week" celebration, but the confection proved to be so popular that it has continued to make it on occasion — just be sure to check if it's available before making the schlep.

 

The citrusy glaze balances out the decadent filling. Photo: Jed Egan

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: sweets, doughnuts, hudson & charles, new york, new york city, the doughnut project, west village

Among the remarkable elements of WIT STUDIO's steamtech zombie series Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is TV anime's first credited Chief Makeup Animator. Animate Times has profiled Sachiko Matsumoto, previously worked on the production teams of WIT's Hōzuki no Reitetsu anime, and Production I.G's Guilty Crown and Gost in the Shell: Arise, along with showing examples of the work. 

The extra attention to the characters' faces and hairs allows cuts of the anime to capture the details in classic character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto's (Macross, Gunbuster, Gundam 0080) original work, along with the nuance of the phsyical and emotional effects of the action on the characters. In a new step in the anime production, software called VPaint Animation is used to apply pencil or brush textures.

『甲鉄城のカバネリ』チーフメイクアップアニメーターの松本幸子さんインタビュー、担当させていただきました。美樹本さんインタビューとあわせてぜひ。木曜深夜はノイタミナで視聴→アマゾンプライムビデオでメイクアップ注意しつつアゲインです。https://t.co/FJKy338UCT

— 小林真之輔 (@sananosuke_) May 5, 2016

A friend asked me earlier and it's been a recurring thing this season so I guess it's worth talking about Kabaneri's 'Makeup Animation'.

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

Kabaneri has a Chief Makeup Animator with a group of digital artists adding extra detail and shading to some shots. pic.twitter.com/xWjsjYGYDN

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

The official examples provided aren't ideal, but you can tell they focus on hair detail, eye texture, eyelashes, etc pic.twitter.com/lGVQnMNMzN

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

There's articles bragging about the role's first appearance in TV anime - technically true, at least with this specialized&focused approach.

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

As nice as looks there's obvious cons (and this is coming from someone not even watching). The contrast with the 'regular' shots is awkward.

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

Not like shows should have a homogeneous look, but if it feels like there's 2 styles coexisting and one's just better then something's off.

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

And also, lol @ the kind of people who complain anime's no longer hand-drawn (yeah I dunno) but praise Kabaneri's fully digital shading.

— kViN (@Yuyucow) May 6, 2016

There's also a demo of Wit's TVPaint work

There's also a look at the series character designs

【ニュース】「美樹本キャラ」の新たなる１ページ！『甲鉄城のカバネリ』キャラ原案・美樹本晴彦さんに聞く、主人公・生駒とヒロイン・無名が生まれるまで #カバネリ https://t.co/FT9DXZOHgf pic.twitter.com/iMzo1h9IR5

— アニメイトタイムズ公式_旧アニメイトTV (@animatetimes) May 5, 2016

-------
Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Breakfast domination is now within reach. Krispy Kreme was bought out for a cool $1.35 billion by JAB Beech, the German investment firm that owns Peet's Coffee & Tea and recently bought third-wave coffee pioneers Stumptown and Intelligentsia. The firm will pay a premium of $21 a share for the international doughnut chain, and the acquisition has sent stock up almost 25 percent. A senior partner with JAB says the firm is just investing in brands with potential for lots of growth, but given the relatively rapid acquisitions of these very specific companies it may or may not be assembling the pieces for a Dunkin' Donuts killer. How exactly, if at all, these brands will interact isn't yet clear, though Krispy Kreme did finally figure out late last year that it can make more money by telling people it employees baristas. But, hey, that classic glazed doughnut would taste pretty good with Stumptown's chocolate cold brew, no?

[AP]

Read more posts by Chris Crowley

Filed Under: the chain gang, empire building, intelligenstia, krispy kreme, peet's coffee and tea, stumptown

The mayor doesn't want New Yorkers to support the chain because of the COO's stance on LGBT rights

Southern fried chain Chick-fil-A arrived in New York with a bang last fall, and now the company plans to insert new locations all over the city. Both Midtown outposts are packed every day during lunch, but you won't find Mayor de Blasio there. At a press conference yesterday, de Blasio told reporters: "What the ownership of Chick-fil-A has said is wrong....I’m certainly not going to patronize them and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them. But they do have a legal right."

The mayor is referring to Chick-fil-A president and COO Dan Cathy, who has been very vocal about his opposition to same-sex marriage, and the fact that in the past, a charitable endeavor affiliated with the restaurant donated millions to groups that aimed to thwart LGBT rights initiatives. When Chick-fil-A landed in New York last year, the company made it very clear that it did "not have an opinion as an organization" about same-sex marriage, even though the chain's head honcho has many opinions on the subject. LGBT rights activists and born-again Christians showed up on opening day to duke it out in front of the restaurant.

The chain recently announced plans to open an outpost in the Queens Center Mall, which prompted Councilman Danny Dromm to call for a boycott. The politician released a statement this week that notes: "This group imparts a strong anti-LGBT message by forcing their employees and volunteers to adhere to a policy that prohibits same-sex love. It is outrageous that Chick-fil-A is quietly spreading its message of hate by funding these types of organizations."

There's a brand-new outpost of Ample Hills Creamery attached to Bubby's High Line, so it makes sense that the two would join forces to create a megadessert. Behold, the pie sundae:

 

Sour-cherry pie with vanilla ice cream, caramel, whipped cream, and rainbow sprinkles. Photo: Hannah Mattix

There will be a few different flavors of pie sundae, along with pie shakes, floats, and regular ol' ice cream. Here's the new location-specific flavor:

 

Floatin' on the High Line: root-beer ice cream with mini marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles, made with Bubby's root-beer syrup. Photo: Hannah Mattix

The 400-square-foot space has booth seating for eight to ten people, but you can of course take a cone to go and stroll the High Line. Just don't attempt to simultaneously walk and eat a pie sundae.

 

Inside. Photo: Hannah Mattix

Ample Hills Creamery, 73 Gansevoort Street, 646-590-1288

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: openings, ample hills, ample hills creamery, ice cream, pie sundae, we all scream

So, yeah, this is really happening. Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic one. They will enter the general election as the two most disliked major presidential candidates in history, suggesting the country is in for a long, nasty, expensive six months between now and Election Day.

Now that we’ve taken a moment to acknowledge the reality that a dangerously unstable demagogue is one step away from the highest office in the land, the obvious question is: What are the chances Trump can actually get there? Here at Slate, there is some difference of opinion on just how worried we should be about his uncanny ability to defy the normal laws of politics and whether he could (once again) make fools of all of us for failing to grasp the effectiveness of his particular brand of grievance politics. But this much is clear: He’ll enter a general election matchup with Clinton as a big underdog.

Pollsters have been asking about a possible matchup between the two for the better part of a year, and the results have consistently showed Clinton ahead. Of the more than 70 surveys taken since the start of 2016, Trump has led in only five of them, three of which came in an early cluster at the start of January. According to Huffington Post’s running average, Hillary leads the Donald by nearly 7 points:

It’s still early enough where we shouldn’t read too much into such hypothetical polling—traditionally, these type of surveys aren’t all that predictive until after the conventions—but it’s hard to think of a previous matchup that involved two candidates who were already as well-known to the American public as Trump and Clinton are. When Americans are asked about their feelings about either candidate, typically only about 3 to 4 percent say they don’t know enough about them to have an opinion. That suggests the barrage of attack ads that are on the way are more likely to reinforce current opinions than change them.

There’s also the fundamentals of the race, most of which currently favor Clinton: The unemployment rate is down to 5 percent (more than 3 points lower than it was four years ago), and President Obama’s job approval and favorability ratings are both now above water. And, perhaps as important as anything else, the electoral map looks particularly friendly to Democrats. As the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza noted earlier this week, if Clinton can win the 19 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have voted for the Democratic nominee in each of the last six presidential elections, she can clinch the election simply by claiming Florida. The Cook Political Report sees a similarly Clinton-friendly map.

Hillary is far from the perfect candidate, of course, but Trump is currently canceling out many of her weaknesses. She is unpopular; he is more unpopular. She has a problem with independents; he has a worse one. She still needs to unite her party after combative primary; he faces an even larger challenge on that front. Americans don’t trust her; Americans are actually scared of him. And even Trump’s perceived strengths aren’t actually as strong as they’re often portrayed. As the New York Time’s Nate Cohn notes, Trump is currently faring worse than Mitt Romney did four years ago among white voters in the battleground states that will likely decide the election. Given the horrible things he’s said about Hispanics, blacks, and Muslims, it’s hard to imagine him faring better with nonwhite voters. And, of course, there’s the one issue on which Trump’s been remarkably consistent, his hatred of women, a demographic that actually accounts for a majority of voters.

In short: Things don’t look good for Trump. Am I willing to call the election six months out? No. Considering the media’s attempts to domesticate Trump in the name of political narrative, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump closes the gap—however briefly—in head-to-head polling with Clinton in the weeks to come, particularly if Bernie Sanders continues to hang around and force her to campaign on two different fronts. And despite all the #NeverTrump playacting, much of the GOP establishment is already beginning to rally around the celebrity businessman, and many conservative voters will likely do the same when they’re reminded that the coming election will decide both the White House and the Supreme Court. That sets up the possibility that we’re heading into a relatively run-of-the-mill partisan election despite the fact that one of the candidates is anything but a run-of-the-mill politician. Still, a run-of-the-mill partisan election favors Hillary.

Read more of Slate’s coverage of the 2016 campaign.

Lina Inverse: Bandit Killer, Dragon Spooker, and Beautiful Sorceress. That’s right, we decided to revisit the classic 90’s fantasy comedy Slayers.

The show is a mixture of comedy and adventure that is both a parody and homage to the various worlds of fantasy and roleplaying. Lina, Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia are your stereotypical D&D adventuring party (albeit with a rather spell-casting heavy focus) killing monsters, hording treasure, fighting amongst themselves, and causing tremendous amounts of collateral damage which sometimes inadvertently save the world. And in the 90’s Megumi Hayashibara was the queen of anime voice actresses and one of her most iconic roles was Lina.

Back in the day not everyone liked Slayers but almost everyone had watched it and had an opinion about it. Now even with the two recent seasons in 2008 the series is distinctly seen as a product of the 90s.

We are recruiting adventures for our journey to discover if Slayers is still an enjoyable 90s romp or a cursed relic better buried in the stream of time. If you are a high enough level, you should rewatch Slayers with our party!

DOWNLOAD

CRF Frozen Foods, a company that cranks out a suddenly alarming amount of the country's frozen fruits and vegetables, has issued a recall of epic proportions after discovering listeria at a major production facility. The company stresses the move's simply precautionary, but it nonetheless contains a staggering 358 products sold under 42 different brand names. The FDA reports that at least seven people have been sickened by this particular strain that was traced to CRF's Pasco, Washington–based plant, and the recall extends facility-wide, covering every frozen fruit and vegetable product manufactured or processed there, the company says.

Trader Joe's appears to be the most prominent supplier, but the myriad other affected brands — too many to list, really — include Organic by Nature, the common store brand Parade, some frozen Panda Express veggies, and private labels for Walmart, Costco, Safeway, and others. Not terribly reassuringly, the company also says the manufacturing process may have become tainted as far back as 2014. The recall therefore stretches to products with sell-by dates between April 26, 2016, and April 26, 2018. The complete, very long list is available over on the FDA's website.

[NBC NY]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: recalls, costco, crf frozen foods, frozen foods, health concerns, listeria, trader joe's, walmart

Cancelled Akira Genesis / SNES Game (1994)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United marches like a zombie precedent, destroying all in its path. First the case turned the law of campaign finance into a useless corpse. Now it appears the law of political bribery is the next victim. Citizens United let rich people buy candidates; now they may be able to purchase office-holders, too.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Republicans have long sung the praises of trickle-down economics: Just cut taxes, and the economy will flourish as companies and individuals use the windfall to boost investment and create jobs. But a grand experiment in implementing those policies at the state level has revealed a far less rosy reality—and the consequences are threatening to spark a civil war among Republicans.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, launched an "experiment" in conservative policy after he was elected in 2010, drastically slashing the state's income taxes under the assumption that the move would kick-start Kansas' economy and rev up job creation. With help from Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan's mastermind of trickle-down economics, Brownback convinced lawmakers in the state to cut personal income tax rates across the board and eliminate the top tax bracket, with further reductions to come. Kansas also completely erased the income tax bills for the owners of certain "small" businesses, totaling 330,000 by this year and including a host of subsidiaries of Wichita-based Koch Industries. The Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity helped Brownback push the bill, and have remained staunch defenders of the changes. The tax cuts were sold by Brownback with the idea that they would pay for themselves when a renewed economy boosted state revenues despite the lower rates.

Read more about how Sam Brownback created a Kochtopia in Kansas.

Four years after those tax cuts first went into effect, the opposite has occurred. The promised explosion of private sector growth hasn't come to pass, as the state's economy has generally lagged the rest of the nation. In March, the Kansas Department of Labor reported, the state had only 800 more private sector jobs than a year prior. The loss of tax revenue has decimated the state budget, creating a fiscal crisis necessitating drastic cuts, since the state, unlike the federal government, can't run a deficit. As the Kansas City Star's editorial board recently highlighted, so far this fiscal year, Kansas is $420 million short of the revenue it had the year Brownback's tax cuts first went in effect.

Now Brownback's Republican allies who helped shepherd the tax cuts through the legislature are starting to have buyer's remorse. "I'm not happy with how things played out," Republican state Sen. Jim Denning told the Associated Press last month. A group of Republicans introduced a bill in March to reverse the tax exemption for small business owners. "We are going to have long-term budget challenges unless we fix the gaping hole in our tax code, the part of our tax code that is rife with unfairness," state Senate Vice President Jeff King, a Republican, said when the proposal was introduced.

Still, Brownback's allies are not quite ready to ditch the experiment and raise taxes—particularly in an election year. The bill to reinstate taxes on small business owners failed in the state House last week by a 74-45 vote.

Earlier this week, the state legislature reached a deal for a new budget to tackle the shortfalls in the current fiscal year and plan ahead for the one that starts in July, requiring $290 million in cuts or new revenue. Republicans have settled on cuts rather than higher taxes as the solution. The deal cuts highway funds by more than $100 million, delays payments to the state pension program, and reduces funding for the state university system. But legislators largely passed the buck to Brownback when it came to making some of the toughest cuts. They left an extra $92 million in the budget that needs to get erased, and the governor will have to decide what cuts to make, with social services like Medicaid a prime target. The legislature only stipulated that Brownback abstain from cutting funds for K-12 education—likely a moot point anyway, with a years-long lawsuit still winding through the courts that could force the state to spend more money on schools.

"Those of us who come back next year better start figuring this out," Republican state Sen. Jeff Longbine told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "And whether it's revenue or cuts, or a combination of both—but we cannot continue to play the shell game."

NBC Reality show The Biggest Loser stands at the intersection of a great American contradiction: We have a food system geared toward moving mountains of cheap, flavor-engineered, and fattening junk; meanwhile, our pop culture equates thinness with beauty.

Add the show's appeal to our thirst for degrading spectacles and our appetite for self-help treacle, and you've got quite a profitable enterprise—complete with a 16-season run on network TV, four resorts, cookbooks, workout videos, and exercise gear.

But as a New York Times piece underscored earlier this week, what The Biggest Loser doesn't do is provide any kind of recipe for sustained weight loss. That's the obvious takeaway from a dramatic peer-reviewed study published in the journal Obesity that tracked 14 of 16 Biggest Loser contestants from the 2009 season to see how they fared in the years after time on reality TV.

Two things struck me about the story. One is the brutality of the regimen that contestants subject themselves to. Here's the Times, describing the routine of 2009 contestant Danny Cahill, who arrived on the show's set weighing 430 pounds and exited weighing 191 pounds—a 56 percent drop:

Sequestered on the "Biggest Loser" ranch with the other contestants, Mr. Cahill exercised seven hours a day, burning 8,000 to 9,000 calories according to a calorie tracker the show gave him. He took electrolyte tablets to help replace the salts he lost through sweating, consuming many fewer calories than before.

To put those numbers in perspective, consider that the US Department of Agriculture estimates that a moderately active adult male should consume about 2,600 calories daily to maintain body weight. Cahill was routinely burning through more than three times that much.

The second thing was the punishing effort contestants have expended in the years since, in a futile effort to keep the pounds off. For four years, Cahill exercised two to three hours per day to keep his weight below 255 pounds while pursuing a "new career giving motivational speeches as the biggest loser ever." Essentially, Cahill was spending about as much time exercising daily as a healthy adult needs in an entire week, according to the Mayo Clinic's recommendations. Not surprisingly, he couldn't keep it up. When that motivational-speaker work dried up, he returned to his old job as a surveyor—"and the pounds started coming back." Now Cahill weighs 100 pounds more than he did after stepping off Biggest Loser ranch, the Times reports.

All the other contestants in the study followed a similar path: a steep loss for the cameras followed by a long and vexed struggle to maintain it. The participating contestants lost an average of 128 pounds during their stints on the show—and have regained about 90 pounds since. Some are heavier now than before they began their TV exertions.

Their problem is a phenomenon about as ubiquitous and invisible as gravity: what the researchers call "persistent metabolic adaptation." That is to say, when your body adapts to a certain weight—based on genetic factors, but also on diet and exercise—it pushes to maintain that weight when those habits drastically change. It does so essentially by putting the breaks on metabolism. A lower metabolism translates to higher propensity to put on pounds—in essence, your body is less efficient at burning calories and more prone to storing the excess as weight.

When they began their time on The Biggest Loser, the contestants had a "resting metabolism rate" (RMR) of, on average, 2,607 calories. The RMR measures how much energy your body consumes per day maintaining normal functions. Anything you consume above that amount has to be balanced by calorie-burning activity or you put on weight.

By the time they left the show, their average RMR had fallen to 1,996 calories—their bodies burned significantly fewer calories per day than they had burned before, putting pressure on them to eat very little and exercise a lot to maintain their new weights. Six years later, the researchers found—to their surprise—the contestants' RMR levels haven't budged much at all, even though they have regained nearly three-quarters of the weight they had lost. More than a half decade after their made-for-TV ordeal, their bodies are still geared to add more weight. Here's the Times:

As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants' metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight.

In other words, the study suggests, for overweight people, extreme measures like hours per day in the gym and severe calorie restrictions—what The Biggest Loser presents—isn't a long-term weight-loss strategy.

I reached out to the show's producers for comment on the Obesity study. "We have comprehensive procedures and support systems in place which we routinely re-evaluate to ensure all contestants receive the best care possible," they replied in an emailed statement. "The lead medical doctor on the show, who has worked with the National Institutes of Health on initiatives in the past relating to The Biggest Loser, has been made aware of this most recent study and is in the process of evaluating its findings."

While researching this piece, I alighted upon the webpage for The Biggest Loser's resort program, which runs resorts in Chicago, Florida, New York, and California and calls itself a "A Life Changing Weight Loss Program."

A live-chat box popped up, offering assistance. To find out what sort of claim the company makes, I typed in a hypothetical query: "I weigh 350 and hope to get down to 200. Can you help?"

"Absolutely!" came the response. "Are you associated with the TV show?" I asked. "Yes we are!" My chat interlocutor went on to estimate that I could expect to lose four to seven pounds per week at the resort, exercising "about" six hours per day. When I expressed concern about maintaining losses going forward, the person reassured me: "Our educational seminars are built to really help you keep the weight off and continue your program at home!" Rates start at $2,995.00 weekly, plus tax, the rep added.

After living vicariously through friends’ tweets and blog posts during the 2015 Spring broadcast, in 2015 October I was finally able to make my own pilgrimage to Uji, Kyoto Prefecture for Kyoto Animation’s Hibike! Euphonium (響け！ユーフォニアム). I study this kind of pop culture tourism—called seichijunrei (聖地巡礼 holy land pilgrimage) by casual participants, or butaitanbou (舞台探訪 scene hunting) by the pioneers—in an effort to learn about the psychology and behaviors of place-based engagement. This article includes both side-by-side comparisons of frames from Eupho with similarly composed and cropped photos of the real locations on which the backgrounds are based (a core element of butaitanbou practice), as well as my usual street and environment photography to give a sense of the broader picture and capture details not included in show artwork. In doing my own seichijunrei, I hope to understand a little more of what goes on in the mind of someone engaged in one of these exploratory visits, but it’s also a fun way to discover places I might not otherwise think to see.

Though my visit was meant primarily to understand media-induced tourism or (among academics in Japan) contents tourism (コンテンツツーリズム), Uji has a rich history and many notable places that make it a popular destination for general tourism. The city is a preeminent and one of the oldest centers of tea production, hosts a number of important cultural properties, including two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and was used as the setting for the final ten chapters of The Tale of Genji. Literature buffs have long come to Uji to find the scenes described in the classic novel, so one might say Genji pilgrimage is like proto-seichijunrei.

I had one day to cover as much as Eupho as I could. While I couldn’t include every location—and wouldn’t really want to try to compete with the level of detail from friends who live in Kansai and visited Uji every week—I was able to get to a representative sample of highlights covering the entire 13 episode season. I referenced the body of work created by members of the Butaitanbou Community (舞台探訪者コミュニティ), or BTC, who came to Uji before me, but particularly relied on the detailed resources from Ebisu (夷 @ye_bi_su): blog category and Seki (セキ @seki_saima): blog post during my visit.

Keihan Fushimi-Inari Station

My first two stops are not actually in Uji, but still in Kyoto, where I was staying. In one shot of the final episode, Midori appears waiting for the Keihan Main Line at Fushimi-Inari station.

The Keihan Railway is a constant presence in the series, appearing in almost every episode. At the time of my visit, the rail operator and Eupho production committee were in the midst of a promotional collaboration that included marketing collateral in trains, and four of these life-sized character panels, each placed on the platform in the station with which she is most associated. At the time of writing, a new round of collaboration coinciding with the release of a theatrical film adaptation of the first season has the panels return, this time with the characters in summer uniforms.

Midori holds back her contrabass as she watches commuters on the southbound platform.

Keihan Rokujizō Station

Keihan Rokujizō Station is technically still in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto, but is just across the river from Rokujizō Naramachi in Uji.

Eupho train headmark, part of the collaboration marketing collateral

Almost all of the scenes set here are of the southbound platform, taken from the northbound side. Since I was headed south and wanted to prioritize my time down in Uji, I decide not to worry about shot matching in the platform area.

Eupho train headmark

There are advertisements for the KyoAni shop, one stop further down the Keihan Uji Line in the Kohata area of Uji. The shop, corporate headquarters and one of the studio buildings are in Kohata, and another studio is up here near the station on the Kyoto side. Long before Eupho, fans of Kyoto Animation works were familiar with this part of Uji as they came to shop for limited edition goods and to pay homage to the creator.

Rokujizō Station is home to Kumiko’s panel, with Midori, Reina and Hazuki in the background.

In the spatial relationship of the show’s world, Rokujizō Station is the closest to the high school, so we often see the characters board the train here in the afternoon and evening. In reality, the school used as the model is a bit further into Uji, roughly equidistant from Ōbaku Station and Mimurodo Station, though not a short walk from either.

At this point, I run into my first navigation problem solving situation. I need to get to the south side of the Yamashina River next to the station for a shot of the rail viaduct. I note this underpass to the south side of the station, but from the map, there appears to be a through path and shorter route by going around the station’s north side and over a bridge.

I get a nice view of the bus rotary, but when I cross the bridge I can’t figure out what has happened to the path I had anticipated. Everything is fenced off with big signs warning no entry.

I double back and take the underpass to the other side, walk the opposite direction of where I want to go until I find a bridge over the river

After a bit of a detour, I finally get my shot.

Since I had already put myself off the planned time schedule, I decide I’ll take my chances walking through the dote (embankment) itself and hope there is a way out on the other side.

As luck would have it…

Okurayama

We’ve now crossed into Uji, where I pass through a business district near JR Rokujizō Station on the way to my next location.

Longtime readers know it’s difficult for me to pass through a shōtengai (shopping street) and not take photos. I have to keep pulling out my day schedule and remind myself to stay on target.

Tea of the highest quality has been cultivated in Uji for almost 1,000 years. The tea farms are scattered around the city and outskirts, and have been known to be not too accessible to visitors until the very recent past. These fields in Okurayama are nice in that they’re right along a main road near a relatively developed area.

There’s a small public access path partway up the slope, where I’m standing to take this photo. Otherwise, you’ll want to be mindful of manners and not trespass into the farm.

You can’t take this shot without climbing into the tea field, but you can get something close enough from the street with a wide angle lens.

Kohata

I retrace my route back down the slope and then turn south to head into the Kohata area, though I find this section of Prefectural Route 7 tends to have disappearing sidewalks, so I end up playing Frogger with traffic to get to where the shoulder widens again. In Japan, once you leave the big cities, communities grapple with the same kind of walkability issues and car-oriented development as in many other countries.

McDonald’s Uji Kohata shop is used as third place in several episodes of Eupho. It’s also special because it’s the series’ Easter Egg. I’m not sure about earlier works, but recent Kyoto Animation series often have one location that comes from somewhere just outside the headquarters building. Animation studios, particularly the ones based on the west side of Tokyo, have a tendency to use many location models within close proximity to their offices simply out of convenience. Considering the resources and deep research Kyoto Animation puts into its location hunting, it’s hard to think this isn’t an inside joke, a nod and wink to the fans who have made the hike out to take a photo of the studio and visit the shop.

From the McDonald’s, crossing over the JR Nara Line and turning around the side of JR Kohata Station brings me to the studio.

It’s a completely nondescript, little yellow box. There is no bold corporate signage. It isn’t until you walk up close and look at the posters in the display cases that you realize what it is.

The shop, Studio 2 and two other inside jokes are a short walk further along the same road.

Keihan Kowata Station

The shop is in one unit on the second floor, the studio takes up the whole third floor.

There is no photography permitted inside the shop, but they make sure you leave a happy customer.

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

Even further along the street, there’s a mixed use development with apartments above a supermarket on the ground floor.

This appears in Chūnibyō demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren, the second season, though that show’s primary setting is modeled on Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture.

There is a group of ponds at the end of this street that appears briefly in a battle scene from Kyōkai no Kanata, but I’m running behind on time again. I enjoy this little detour, something of a must do if you’re already here, but now I need to move along.

I get back on the Keihan Uji Line at Kowata Station.

Eupho train headmark

Keihan Ōbaku Station

Ōbaku Station is normally where Hazuki would disembark and leave the others as they continue home toward Uji Station. In reality, this is the departure point for a long walk to round up shots of the school and several other location models on the way.

I realize too late that I would have had to get off a northbound train and take this shot of the sign on the southbound platform to get the perspective right.

Hazuki hoists her tuba at the end of the northbound platform.

Nakaji Bakery is next to the station.

Many fans have stopped at Nakaji to sample the hotdog pastry Shūichi and Hazuki eat in the show. In addition, I load up a bag with a tonkatsu sandwich and goodies for lunch later.

Hadoyama

I don’t think I could have gotten better weather.

The blue sky, mountains and greenery everywhere give Uji a grand, whimsical feel.

Even the konbini look majestic. Well, sort of.

Seven Eleven Uji Ōbaku Park shop

Hadoyama Ryokuchi Park

Hadoyama Ryokuchi Park sits at the foot and around the side of a large, elevated shelf that slopes up the mountain. You’ll have to venture through a residential neighborhood to take these and other photos, so you’ll want to be polite and respect residents’ privacy.

I realize later that I would have needed to move even further back and use a longer focal length to get the correct perspective.

Hadoyama Third Childrens Park

This small park is one of several tucked between homes in this neighborhood. In Eupho, many characters use this location to discuss sensitive matters away from the eyes and ears of their classmates.

It’s also a good place to stop for lunch and enjoy the sun filtered through the trees.

Todō Senior High School

The approach to the school begins just opposite the north side of the residential neighborhood.

I frequently point out examples in anime of secondary school students using public transportation, walking and cycling to school. It’s nice to see the urban design and real infrastructure that support it up close.

That’s everything in Hadoyama. Onward to the center of Uji!

Prefectural Route 7

Keiji Bypass

Prefectural Route 7 is the main artery connecting Kyoto and Uji. The road widens as it gets closer to the center of Uji, raising vehicle speeds with it. Though there are wide sidewalks, the high speeds and lack of enclosure and texture on the sides give it a bit of a stroad feeling.

I don’t fancy taking this shot from the crosswalk as my braver counterparts have done, so a quick one from the side will be just fine.

Uji Bridge Area

There are many scenes set on and at the east end of Uji Bridge, but almost all take place in the evening. I take a walk around to get my bearings, but plan to come back at the end of the day for most of the shot matching.

Keihan Uji Station

Two weeks ago, Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, issued an executive order that restored the vote to two hundred and six thousand people who have completed prison sentences and probation or parole for a felony conviction. The move was rightly hailed as a milestone for the state. The Governor effectively overrode a provision in Virginia’s Constitution from the post-Civil War period which was meant to disenfranchise African-Americans. In 2010, according to the Sentencing Project, one of every five black voters in the state had lost the right to vote, one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the country.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

We now have a better look at DC's upcoming Scooby Apocalypse, the sci-fi Scooby Doo update, written by J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen, with breakdowns by Giffen and pencils and inks by Howard Porter, thanks to a preview at TVGuide. The book is part of a larger relaunch of Hanna-Barbera properties by DC, which also includes Flintstones, Future Quest (a Jonny Quest/Space Ghost team-up book), and Wacky Raceland. Scooby Apocalypse #1 is available in stores and online on May 25.

Continue reading…

Maybe Starbucks's next drink should just be called the "Goldilocks"? One month after someone sued the coffee chain for allegedly underfilling lattes, another person in Illinois has filed a lawsuit claiming Starbucks overfills its cold drinks with so much ice that liquid only accounts for about half the promised drink size. Stacy Pincus charges that "the word 'beverage' is defined as 'a drinkable liquid,'" and since nobody thinks ice is "a 'beverage' by definition," she alleges Starbucks is purposefully loading drinks up with ice so it can charge customers more for less product. She's also seeking class-action status — all customers who bought iced drinks from the company in the last ten years.

A little-known secret is that the black horizontal lines on the sides of Starbucks's cold cups are actually fill lines for the barista. They hit midway up the cup, meaning the rest of what gets the beverage to the brim is ice. According to Pincus's lawsuit, the math works out to 14 actual ounces of drinkable liquid in a venti (versus the 24 ounces that are advertised) and 12 ounces in a grande (supposedly 16 ounces). The suit also points out that Starbucks charges more money for iced coffee than it does for hot coffee — $2.65 versus $2.10 for a grande — which it says means the chain "is not only underfilling its Cold Drinks compared to how they are advertised, but it is charging a premium price for them as well." (It's worth noting that the price disparity between Starbucks's iced and hot coffee partly accounts for the fact that iced coffee comes "lightly sweetened.")

A Starbucks spokesperson said the company was aware of the suit, and it believes it to be without merit, adding, "Customers understand and expect that ice is an essential component of any 'iced' beverage." The lawsuit is asking for at least $5 million in damages, and also says Starbucks should switch to way bigger cups that can hold the advertised amount of liquid, so if the plaintiffs prevail, get ready for a lot more of this.

[NBC, BuzzFeed]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: lawsuits, iced drinks, starbucks, the chain gang

This is a bonus segment of the Speakeasy Podcast we like to call Crime Scene Investigations. These are random bonus podcasts that we record about various events. There is no regular schedule for these. We will put them up as quickly as we can when the opportunity for one occurs. 

This (mostly) 1-day convention is just across the river from NYC at the Steven’s Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. This year we were invited as guests to present panels for the event!

DOWNLOAD

So far, Starbucks's various social causes have mostly led to a lot of cringing. Solving racism by writing on cups didn't work out, telling underpaid baristas to "be very sensitive" to angsty Wall Street stockbrokers didn't go over super well either, and a campaign to wipe out youth unemployment likewise fell a little flat. It's no surprise, then, that people had their doubts when the chain said last year that it would help "rebuild and revitalize" Ferguson, at the time still reeling from months of racial unrest, by benevolently giving the town its first Starbucks location. Well, that store opens tomorrow, and as Pollyannaish as cynics argue the idea is, the chain's plan actually isn't such an eye-roller.

The new store is one of 15 the company has pledged to open to fight inequality in low-income or minority neighborhoods. (A somewhat less high-profile location opened last month in Queens.) CEO Howard Schultz has said income inequality is his pet social issue because he grew up poor in New York's housing projects. The Ferguson grand opening comes after almost a year of careful work, and the 30-barista team largely hails from within a five-mile radius of the café and sounds like a model for workplace inclusivity: "We have all walks in this building — African-American, Asian, white, male, female, gay, straight," the manager tells USA Today. "Religious affiliations that go all over the place." Starbucks also hired a minority-owned local contractor to build the store, and designed it to include a conference room that nonprofits like the Urban League will use to run job-training programs.

The pastry case will have the usual scones and pumpkin bread, but there will also be caramel cake from Natalie's Cakes and More, a bakery right by the Ferguson police station that made national news when it was destroyed by rioters. Luckily, a sea of donations poured in, and her shop ended up with almost $300,000 from crowdfunding sites. But she says Starbucks met with her and told her to "start dreaming big," and now she runs the bakery 24 hours a day four days a week and nearly quadrupled the size of her staff to supply cakes to the Ferguson store and about 30 others in the area.

[USAT]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: the chain gang, ferguson, race issues, social causes, starbucks

It’s baffling to us now, but in the early 1980s many adult minds genuinely considered Dungeons and Dragons to be “satanic”. The game, with its dice and little figurines and complex rules (so basically Monopoly with critters?) was seen as an introduction to demonology, and was blamed for teen suicides and murders.

The New York Times recently took a look at this moment of panic, and confirmed that the only real result of a childhood spent playing D&D was: a life spent in creative industries. Authors Junot Diaz and Cory Doctorow talked to the paper about how Dungeons & Dragons set the course of their lives.

“They went down the storm tunnels! And got to play D&D in the tunnels! We had to sit around a table. How awesome would it have been if it turned out D&D was like what they did.” Cory Doctorow may react snarkily to the 1982 film Mazes and Monsters, but the people who led a witchhunt against D&D were all too serious. As New York Times documentary RetroReport explains, conservative Christian groups warned parents that the game would lead their children to Satan, while the media tried to blame tragedies like the suicide of James Dallas Egbert on his love for the game, rather than looking more deeply into his life.

In a more serious moment, Doctorow, who is featured in one of the early-80’s gaming profiles, credits his love for the game with learning how to argue with adults. You can watch the whole video below–it’s a fascinating look at the era:

William Dear, the man who investigated Egbert’s initial (non-D&D-related) disappearance, published a book about the case; Rona Jaffee wrote a novel based on the rumors about the case, which then became the basis for the film Mazes and Monsters; and a group called “Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons” formed in 1982 in response to a different teen suicide. This “moral panic” drew so much more attention to D&D that it actually added to its success. As Timothy Kask, one of the developers of D&D, notes in the NYT video, sales of D&D manuals only really took off in the wake of the Egbert case, nearly quadrupling sales of the game manuals. Gary Gygax and his partners went from earning 2.3 million dollars in 1979, to 8.7 million by the end of 1980.

Of course, what’s most interesting is that when the NYT’s retrospective cuts to the present day, it’s video games that are being vilified by some parents and the media at large, while D&D is seen as a healthier, more cooperative alternative. The video ends with a celebration of people like Doctorow, Diaz, and Stephen Colbert, who have gone on to channel the creativity they sharpened in D&D games into their own writing.

Author Junot Diaz has the warmest memories of the game, in stark contrast to the documentary’s clips of moral panic. As a young Dominican immigrant in New Jersey, he collected a diverse group of friends who gathered together to play. He usually hosted the games, and since his mother was happy that gaming was keeping her son off the street, she’d cook for the whole group while they played. “All these kids I grew up with, I think they ate more Dominican food than they ate their own darn food.” By going to different world with the games, Diaz muses that he may have been reenacting his immigration, except this time as the Dungeon Master he was in control of his journey.

But probably the most important part of the reminiscence is Diaz’ realization of what the game offered him and his friends: “Being a bunch of kids of color, in a society that tells us we’re nothing…to be able to play heroes…this was a revolution. None of us had been asked to be protagonists of anything….it was profoundly transformative for us.” You can watch his film below:

[via New York Times]