JOHN YURCABA IV: So We Kneel

People upset at those who kneel at the flag in protest are just showing that they never understood what it was about in the first place...the protests OR the flag. The flag is a concept. An ideal. It represents the country we WANT America to be. The country we fight for it to be. It flies high so we can always see it and aim for what it represents.

Kneeling doesn't disrespect the flag. WE disrespect the flag by pretending we are currently anywhere near being examples of what it stands for. To stand and say "Oh, we're TOTALLY living up to this flag. To America's greatest ideals. To that most perfect union we all dream of which this flag is symbolizing. We are ON it." That is a lie. It’s a lie to ourselves, and a lie to anyone who sees us doing it.

It doesn't matter if you, personally, as an individual, are 100% the most infallible example of an American in the history of America. Lincoln, Dr. King, Kennedy, Maya Angelou, and Barack Obama all rolled into one.

Look to your left. Look to your right. Turn on your TV. Look out the window.

We are not doing okay. As a whole, as a country, as Americans, we are failing each other, we are failing the world, and we are definitely failing to live up to the flag.

Cops are beating and killing the innocent. Black people are being targeted, abused, and even lynched in modern times. The President (or what passes for a President to some people) is hiding in a bunker, inciting division in the country, and committing violence against American people. He assaulted peaceful protesters for a hollow, heartless, and horrific photo op at a church he'd probably never visit of his own free will, holding a book he'd never read.

Except for that one time he read about the two Corinthians, I suppose.

The flag’s purpose doesn't change. Sure, the design may have been rearranged over the years to accommodate more stars for more states, but since its inception, it has represented some form of the same idealized version of America that we all hope to one day make a reality. We evolve as a people, as a nation, and when we vote, we are agreeing on the lawmakers and leaders we believe will most accurately move us closer to the ideals that the majority of us agree the flag should continue to stand for and represent. It's a beacon. A destination. A dream. You think kneeling in front of the flag means we are disrespecting the troops or those who died defending it? No. That is NOT the case. They sacrificed. They fought and bled and died for us to have our freedoms. We kneel because we aren’t worthy to stand on THEIR LEVEL. They gave it all so we could continue to be free, and we’re out here unable to treat each other with common decency. We should be on a knee, thinking real hard about how we are FAILING to honor the people who laid down their lives.

We are silly to think that we are at a place where we should feel worthy of standing in the shadow of that flag. We are nowhere near the flag right now, and if more people understood that, they'd be kneeling too. As much as the flag represents us, we must represent the flag. We kinda suck at that right now. The flag flies at half mast when the American people are hurting. It represents our pain and sorrow in a time of tragedy. It’s usually something we can’t control. The death of a great leader, a terrorist attack, a horrible accident. But right now WE should be flying at half mast. We’re hurting the American dream. We have the ability to control our actions, but so many of our actions have been ABHORRENT, especially from those who, on the surface, are meant to serve and protect. To lead by example, and promote peace and justice. It’s just as tragic. We like to talk about the weight that flag should have, and yeah, if it really is meant to represent how great our country should be, that is a lot of weight. But we are not carrying it well. We need to think. We need to regroup. And we need to rise as one.

But we’re not there yet.

So we kneel.

---

John Yurcaba is a biracial freelance artist and writer who has been studying storytelling since before he can remember. He grew up carrying a sketchbook with him everywhere he went, inspired by his favorite comics, tv shows, and films to create his own adventures. After finishing high school, he followed in the footsteps of his servicemember parents and grandparents and joined the US Air Force as a Radio and Television Broadcaster. He served as a videographer in the 1st Combat Camera Squadron, creating short form documentary films to tell the Air Force Story, and the stories of those he served with.

While on active duty he met his wife, Michelle, and after their enlistments ended, they moved to LA, where they continued to work in the film industry.
John currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he continues to hone his craft. He recently completed his Associate’s Degree in Comic Book and Sequential Art, and has had his art displayed in the Phoenix Museum of Art, as well as featured at the 2019 Ghostbusters Fan Fest, and in the 2020 Ghostbusters Art Book from Printed in Blood and Insight Editions.

You can see more of his work at @johnyurcaba4 on instagram and twitter, or at his website, https://johnyurcabaiv.wixsite.com/arts

GHOSTBUSTERS 2016: Toxic Fandoms

Sometimes, I have to admit. It is difficult to be a fan of anything. 

Artist John Yarcuba IV has grown to be a close friend of mine. I love this brother; he is the only other person on planet Earth that I've ever met that has an equally unusual (and unusually equal) passion for, and intriguingly deep knowledge of, the same two media franchises that I too am hopelessly enamored with: Ghostbusters and Gundam.  He knows how deep my love for Ghostbusters (1984) really runs--and I need you to understand, too. Comical, whimsical, sly, entrepreneurial, filled with large laughs and splashes of horror, I am a child of the franchise’s ingenius marketing, and Bill Murray’s driest humor. This movie is unstoppable, unbeatable, and relentlessly relevant for every situation in my entire life. The franchise, still vividly alive 35 years later, is my very heartbeat. Having exhausted the franchise's official films and cartoons, imagine a ten or eleven-year-old kid revving up his pathetic CompuServe 2000 dial-up internet just to search "Ghostbusters 3", hoping to find some good news. 

Any news.

Every day.

For years.

Later, as a 25-year-old man, with a wife and daughter who know all too well the gospel of the Ghostbusters thanks to yours truly, after all of the rumors and fan fiction, try to imagine my disappointment when, finally, a third Ghostbusters film was not only announced, but an official trailer released. No, the disappointment does not stem from the film Answer the Call itself, the cast, jokes, or computer generated imagery. It stems from the YouTube comments. 

Dangerously, shockingly, hopelessly, irreverently toxic in its drywall sexism and horrible aftertaste of the entitled American male. Exhibit A: grown men claiming tales of ruined childhoods; questions of the film's validity due to the sex appeal (or subjective lack thereof) of the four female leads; claims that women "cannot" do what they've been, in this case, hired to perform as. A second group of foolish fans devoted their time to claiming that everyone who seemed apprehensive or skeptical of the then-upcoming film were being no less sexist than the actual sexists. The overwhelming response came from a new group of overly offended fans who repeatedly brought up (see: whined) that they were no longer “allowed” to have a logical, valid disapproval of the film thanks to the iron fist of the feminist agenda.

In no time at all, these three clashing camps of toxic Ghostbusters "fans" represented the whole, and thus began the demise of a decent cinema fanbase for the franchise...MY franchise. 

And yes, these camps had some unique influence on the film itself as well. Director Paul Feig found it fitting to retaliate against the real-world sexism the film's campaign launch faced, but cleverly in-film, turning life's lemons into meta-lemonade. Clever on paper as it was, the anti-sexist clapbacks fell pretty flat, and the sexist males in real life, disturbingly enough, were outlandishly offended by the childish jokes. The 2016 reboot/tribute to my favorite movie of all time really revealed a saddening darkness of the "fandom", as well as its staggering self-destructive power: sexism, parasitic as post-World War II HYDRA, found itself exposed by the light, that light being a simple triggering mechanism: a series of movie trailers. This legion of sexism played itself by revealing itself. It ultimately isn't about whether Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was a bad flick or not. That is subjective, and completely up to the individual. It's about toxic sexism, a toxic response to toxic sexism, and a film studio under pressure of cancel culture to speak up or shut down the toxic sexism. 

Hilariously, all parties failed. Why is it hilarious? Because Answer the Call is still a fun movie, and I enjoy it, flaws and all. After all of that. 

For a split second there, though, I was indeed truly ashamed to say that I was a Ghostbusters fan, mostly due to the fact that other grown men acted on behalf of the entire community of lovers of the first film (for whatever reason, it was "in style" at the time to hate on Ghostbusters 2, really for no other reason than that it wasn't Ghostbusters 1). We all looked bad. Men looked sexist for disliking the film, women looked overly butthurt over their disapproval, and the real sexists that started this firefight sneakily slipped their way out of it, like dirty snakes, like smooth criminals. It was Captain America: Civil War all over again, and Zemo had just divided the Avengers...and walked away. 

Thankfully, it didn't take Thanos threatening half of all life in the universe to get us to see the bigger picture. 

Most of us discovered that there was something wrong, or missing, at a fundamental level. It wasn’t necessarily just a gender-“thing”, or just a race “thing”, (although plenty of these fandom issues revolve around those categories and constantly, and maturely, need addressing). It was more of an expectation “thing”. A perception “thing”. A representation “thing”. In a time when racism, for instance, heavily revolves around toxic and twisted ideas stemming from an innately health and organic desire to simply belong, plenty of Americans have become much too comfortable voicing their opinions on who belongs where. English actor John Boyega, who portrays First Order soldier turned Rebellion hero Finn, was told by “fans” a black Stormtrooper did not belong in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Vietnamese actress Kelly Tran Marie, portraying Resistance heroine Rose Tico, was similarly told by “fans” she doesn’t belong in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Had these characters been white, would there have been any issue? 

I don’t know. A part of me is blinded, and humiliated, by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man jogging through a neighborhood, gunned down by two white men, each armed, who decided he didn’t belong. What sounds like a tale of caution from the Jim Crow era is a reality in the year 2020. What a blessing the stars of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call were not physical chased after for their so-called intrusion on a franchise that took an extra step to show that yes, they too, belong, regardless of what the toxic sects of an otherwise beautiful fanbase have to say about it.

I would love to hear a promise from the entire planet that something this mortifying would never happen again. It blinds us from the foundational love that united us in the first place. I think my pal John would agree, too. Fandoms need FANS…

…instead of people telling other people where they belong.                 

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE: Beautiful…and Rigid.

A massive part of what I believe made Square Enix's (then, SquareSoft) quintessential RPG, Final Fantasy VII, the universal smash hit that it still is today, is because of the region-free, episodically correct title. Most fans these days know the tale, and the redemption, of the shattered chronology: in the U.S., we received the original Final Fantasy from Japan, but did not receive the original Final Fantasy II, or Final Fantasy III. We did, however, receive Final Fantasy IV, but since it was the second Final Fantasy game America got, it was renamed Final Fantasy II for American audiences. Then, after not receiving Japan's Final Fantasy V, we did receive Final Fantasy VI, under the new American title Final Fantasy III. All fans knew were the existence of our versions of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy III. 

Then suddenly, Final Fantasy VII comes out. 

As we had mysterious missed IV, V, and VI, the title was baffling. Yet, also, absolutely intriguing: non-Final Fantasy fans likely hadn't heard of the franchise at all up until VII's American release, which sought to ignore the fact that most Americans, especially us kids at the time, had no clue that the "trilogy" we received were scattered chapters of a thriving franchise in Japan, let alone that we were robbed of three full-length titles. VII might as well had been the first Final Fantasy ever made, as far as we were concerned. In that direction, perhaps VII would make everything right....and in my opinion, it did! Twenty plus years after its stateside release, only a few RPG enthusiasts wouldn't rush to defend Final Fantasy VII as the greatest video game release of 1997, and quite possible the most revered RPG of all time.

The newly released Final Fantasy VII Remake is incredible, and it goes without saying that it is indeed the most highly anticipated remake for any video game ever released. I'm still shocked that Square/Soft/Enix never found it fit before 2020 to give the incredible core characters of VII more realistic portrayals like those of Squall and company from Final Fantasy VIII in any real RPG format (which means protagonist Cloud Strife's appearances in the fighting games Dissidia, Ehrgeiz, and Super Smash Bros don't necessarily count). Regardless, after numerous re-releases, a compilation of spin-offs, and two decades worth of rumors about a direct VII sequel...we've finally received it in 2020. 

And to be honest? I like the 1997 original more. Much more.

Firstly, understanding how deep and recklessly emotional the original game's story would become was absolutely its strongest asset, in conjunction with its commanding soundtrack and universal subjectivity to how every individual player experienced the "voices" and behaviors of its lead characters like Cloud Strife and Aerith Gainsborough. The original game had no voice actors, just a lot of dialog bubbles for players to read and limited physical movements. As a result, we players all had different ideas of how each character sounded in our own heads, and what their behaviors meant to actually portray. This idea was amplified by the traditional RPG mechanic of naming the playable characters whatever we wanted, so as to familiarize them and give them a much more personal meaning to the player.

On that note, there are very few things wrong with Remake. This version is challenging, unfamiliar in somehow-already-traveled terrain, and reasonably balanced. Yet, the one word that I keep coming to describe this game overall is "rigid". The in-game, extra-meta subplot of the supernatural Whispers keeping destiny in place only serves to emphasize the aptness of the word for this action-RPG. Yes, in all its beauty, in all its sandbox-inspired action gameplay (akin to Kingdom Hearts), and in all its addictive progression, it is still rigid. Renaming the characters, and thus giving them their personal importance to use players, is no longer an option. Remake feels like the film adaptation of a much-beloved novel in this way: now we have defining physical attributes, voices, and unchangeable names for these characters headed toward a destiny that is largely cinematic spectacle but sadly one-dimensional.

Like the original, Materia is exigent to the turn-based battles of the Active Time Battle chessboard of in-game fights, and using Summon Materia to call mythical monsters to your aid all but ensures ultimate victory. In Remake's action-oriented battle sequences, the game itself seems to determine when the player is "allowed" to use Summon abilities, which annoyingly defeats the purpose of having a Summon Materia equipped during boss battles or otherwise run-ins with challenging enemies--times when it would be most necessary to use a Summon. And good luck trying to fill up that "limit break" bar in battle--these are the "super attack" meters that allow you to pummel an enemy with an extreme strike once you've taken enough damage. In the Remake, they take so long to build up that you will have easily used up a good handful of Phoenix Down tufts reviving dead characters in your party, or probably winning the battle already before those meters are even full. The inaccessibility of these super moves doesn't make them feel more special when accessed; it only serves to annoy the player that needs them when they aren't available.

The world of Midgar is replicated perfectly, deepening the player's love for this half-modern, half-cyberpunk city where the story of both the original and the remake is rooted. Remake, of course, focuses only on Midgar (arguably just the first quarter of the overall story), and ends just when the player is hurting for more adventure after an overly frustrating series of mega-boss battles. The game's attempts to remain fluid and without the restraints of rigidity through its filler gameplay and high amount of sidequests keep the electricity running, but they don't quite have enough purpose to carry the entire Remake on their shoulders.   

Not all is bleak, however. Like the original, and like all episodic Final Fantasy titles, this is a character-driven story. And here, rigidity and all, the characters shine through. Enlisting a new cast to dub the game apart from the actors who performed in the 2005 CGI film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was ultimately a good decision, breathing new life into the familiar without disregarding the original. Surprisingly, it wasn't the epic return of RPG-Cloud, or Barrett, or even Aerith, that brought goosebumps to my soul that longed for that Final Fantasy VII-sized hole in my heart to be filled. Not at all....it was none other than a super-side character, Jessie, who has been fleshed out for the Remake, transforming her from forgettable and expendable, to precious and memorable.

The filler material that most of us fans have been complaining about in Remake is put to great use most of the time. Example? It serves to provide great insight into Jessie's life: she's an actor; she has a mother who makes dazzling homemade pizza; her father is sick; and she has a hard, obnoxious crush on Cloud Strife. An original song made for Remake, simply titled Jessie's Theme, is the best song in the game, and brought tears to my eyes after repeated listens in-game, effectively standing alongside the original game's Ahead On Our Way as one of the most soul-warming, smile-inducing elements of any RPG I've ever experienced. 

Yes, I prefer the original 1997 RPG classic. That doesn't mean I regret buying the action-oriented Remake. In fact, I cannot wait to defeat the final boss (I'm currently stuck on, ugh) and repeat the game to catch whatever it is that I missed. Remake is a triumph, and considering the unusual winning streak of this one title, VII, for a franchise with a very rough, region-based history--especially for American players--there is no better time than to celebrate the game and make history again. Who knows when Final Fantasy XVI will come out, or what it will be like--RPG? Action RPG? MMORPG?--but until that day, VII Remake's future chapters will have to do. Rigid, flawed, bold, and maybe even a little self-righteous...I highly anticipate the games to come that will complete the new VII story. 

GUNDAM WING: The Value of Life

For a story who's major theme is the value of human life, there sure are a lot of folks attempting suicide in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Released in Japan on April 7th, 1995 as New Mobile Report Gundam W, the extremely popular mecha anime series Gundam Wing followed in the footsteps of its colossal, ground-breaking ancestor Mobile Suit Gundam--also debuting in Japan on April 7th, but in 1979--by telling a the tale of a futuristic series of battles known as the Eve Wars fought between factions who use manned giant robots, mobile suits, as the frontline to most battles on Earth and in space.

In the future, when the peace-keeping leader of the space colonies is assassinated by military organization OZ, five OZ scientists become disgruntled with their former employers and spend the next twenty years plotting revenge. Their plan is executed in After Colony 195, and the scientists see the completion of five Gundams, hyper-powerful mobile suits, and the training of their teenaged pilots. The plot to send these five Gundams and their pilots to Earth to rebel against, and defeat, OZ, is where the story begins, following the pilots and their adversaries, who with their powerful Gundam mobile suits execute mass mayhem across the world akin to Dynasty Warriors, extracting their revenge on OZ and striking fear into the hearts of otherwise stern and stubborn soldiers.

For a boy who grew up on Robotech--another violent space opera/sci-fi/war drama that centered on giant manned robots--the arrival of Gundam Wing in America on March 6th, 2000, on Cartoon Network's extremely popular Toonami block was a perfect fit for me. I knew nothing about Gundam back then, except that the Toonami promo for it reminded me of Robotech. I saw cool-looking anime characters piloting these beautiful, stylish, oddly recognizable giant robots, with excellent music, and once I finally watched the show for the first time, I was shocked and impressed. I was ten years old. I had no idea how deeply this show would impact me for the rest of my life. Granted, nobody thinks that a series about hot teenagers piloting giant mechas and killing hundreds of soldiers is anything beyond simply cool to a ten-year-old boy. And sure, yes--it was cool as hell.

Watching the series enchanted me to take to CompuServe 2000 dial-up internet, and deeply research the franchise in its entirety, which at the time was largely not available in America. I fell in love with what I couldn't touch, what I couldn't see. Apparently, Gundam was thriving in the 80s with a bunch of series that were exclusive to Japan with neat titles, more simplistically designed suits, and classically anime-looking protagonists. I was so intrigued and heartbroken all at once. But as the shows and films under the Gundam name have constantly been released stateside over the years, I noticed that each of these shows and films had themes attached to them--sometimes subtle, sometimes obnoxious. The underlying theme of Gundam Wing, again, was the value of human life.

In the show's backstory, the assassinated pacifist leader of the space colonies was a man named Heero Yuy. The 15-year-old protagonist of this series is a handsome, personality-less, and nameless soldier who was trained and conditioned to be the ultimate mobile suit pilot. The show never reveals his real name or acknowledges if he even has one, but the "codename" he goes by the entire show is Heero Yuy, in honor of the pacifist leader, whose death is the progenitor of the rebellion OZ is now facing. The way that the real Yuy's life is honored through the young main character carries a weight with it that captivates the gravity of one single life. The entire series is based off of that weight, the value of that one individual person.

Four of the five main characters, the Gundam pilots whose missions are so secretive that their existences are unknown even to one another until future episodes, have attempted to kill themselves at least once. Heero Yuy does successfully self-detonate his Gundam in the tenth episode of the series, and he is thought to be dead for a moment, surviving by nothing less than a miracle. Watching the first nine episodes again with a new clarifty, I caught various moments where Heero tried to kill himself that ten-year-old me didn't catch. As an adult, it hit me. This war, the killing of other men...these five kids were conditioned to become numb to it. Numb to their own lives, it would seem. In various circumstances, their proposed suicide attempts have been symbolic gestures of the bigger picture, offensive measures in battle, and steps to ensure that no enemy gets their hands on their secretive Gundams. The only thing that has kept these insane 15-year-olds alive are the others around them who can see their value, or the Gundams themselves in stranger circumstances.

The latter half of the 49-episode series reveals new players in the war: mobile dolls, powerful and intuitive A.I. based mobile suits that require no human pilot. Upon the arrival of these powerful machines, the relationships between friends and foes alike are changed when the morality of sending pure machines into battle instead of fighting, and dying at the hands of, another human being is largely put into question. The dolls soon become a threat to everyone, but most importantly, their ideals. Their arrival sets the foundation for one of the show's key antagonists, Treize Khushrenada, to defect from the very OZ that he leads. Because, he claims, human life is more valuable than to be snuffed out at the hands of a lifeless doll. And war, others say in agreement, is not some video game or chessboard with game pieces to be placed and moved instead of human soldiers. Ironically, during this period, the attempts of the main characters to die at their own hands is reduced drastically. When the value of their own lives is threatened from an outside perspective, they seem to be able to focus better on winning, and living, their value maintained and sought after.

Gundam series are traditionally multi-faceted, nuanced, and emotionally "adult". 1985's Zeta Gundam speaks volumes on women in the battlefield, and femininity in general. 2010's Gundam Unicorn, adapted from the manga, carries the underlying theme of setting destiny in motion by possibility, not by the decrees supposedly setting destiny rigidly in place. Even the more simplistically self-aware, fun series like 1994's G Gundam and the more recent Gundam Build subseries have their moments. But what makes Gundam Wing such a stand-out show on its theme are the conditions it sets for the audience to be captivated, and the questions it brings. Is a revolution really worth it when the cost of the freedom at the end of the tunnel is the mental instability and conditioned worthlessness of the soldiers at the frontline?

As a grown man now, it breaks my heart to see these teenagers constantly find next to no reason to live, except for the next mission, and to otherwise attempt to end their own lives if any compromise is presented, or if any alternative message needs to be delivered. When Heero attempts to end his life, it isn't long before Trowa Barton, another Gundam pilot, considers attempting to do the same thing. "It'll be my last," he thinks aloud to himself, "grand-stand show." While losing his first battle in space to the mobile dolls, Gundam pilot and deuteragonist Duo Maxwell laments that, for he and his Gundam, it may be the end. Upon defeat, he announces that he doesn't want to necessarily "copy Heero, but tag along, on my journey into hell," before pressing his self-detonation switch rather than have his Gundam taken by the enemy. (His Gundam is so battered, however, the switch malfunctions and he lives to see another day, which the otherwise optimistic Duo laughs about.)

Unknowingly, Heero has a profound impact on his future comrades' decisions, and he never even knew it. Violence begets violence, we know that already. But the show's portrayal of suicide contagion, or "copycat suicide", reflected a true and serious societal wound that has yet to be healed. It was only two days after the suicide of Kate Spade that Anthony Bourdain took his own life by the same method as Kate. Similarly, following the suicide of Robin Williams, it was reported that suicide attempts using the same method as him had increased by 32% in the following months, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. This type of coincidence is no coincidence at all. Yes, violence begets violence, but evidently, suicide also begets further suicide. Gundam Wing's aim to shine a light on the relationship between the value of human life and what encourages us to protect that value may possibly be inadvertent. I, however, highly doubt it.

Gundam Wing was ahead of its time for me. Toonami's most popular shows at the time were DragonBall Z and Sailor Moon, and Gundam Wing quickly became the action cartoon block's highest rated show and, to this day, it is highly revered for widely bringing Gundam to the States. Even though Sunrise Studios was celebrating the franchise's 20th anniversary and, to help further that campaign, dubbed 1981's Gundam Movie Trilogy, 1989's Gundam 0080, and 1991's Gundam 0083 directly to VHS for American video store shelves in 1998, none of these animated features would appear on television in front of millions of anime-hungry kids and teens before Gundam Wing did and set the standard for giant robot anime in the west that made a pathway from everything to Big O to Evangelion to Cowboy Bebop to succeed in America. But none of those shows had the impact on me Gundam Wing had. I only hope, as major issues like suicide need to continue to be responsibly discussed, that the shows, video games, films and animes that largely speak on them are continually talked about as well.

In those regards, I'll probably never stop talking about Gundam Wing.