Michael “The Roach” Janszen just put up a very nice Panty Explosion review on his German review site Roachware. Thanks! Below is a badly babelfished excerpt, but you can read the whole thing in German here.
“who does not want completely to try once somewhat so ordinary, or who finds the mechanics with the best friend and the Rivalin interesting, it should try. Those few dollar for the set of rules is more than worth Panty explosion, and also the name should not deter.”
I hate babelfish, but I’m reading this as:
“If you want to try something that’s not so ordinary, or if you find the Best Friend/Rival mechanic interesting, you should give it a try. It’s more then worth the cost of the book! And don’t let the name stop you!”
It’s interesting to note that reviews from outside the U.S. are always a lot better then domestic reviews. Not that our domestic reviews are bad, but it’s clear that our market is not the U.S.
Jake
December 20, 2007 at 5:58 am |
Yes, your translation is closer to what I wrote, Babelfish made a royal mess of it. Looks like I do write for (my) domestic market, considering how badly munged my reviews are when fed through Babelfish.
As to ‘bad reviews’, I offered a round of Pabty Explosion at the WinterPogo, a weekend convention near Cologne, and people were really dubious about the system when they heard the name – at least that much is the same in the States and in Germ-land.
BTW, I was right when I said that you both are from Oregon, I hope.
December 20, 2007 at 6:23 am |
Yep, we’re both from Portland, Oregon. Matt and his wife Kim are my downstairs neighbors.
Babelfish is always a nightmare for me. We sell a majority of our books to foreign customers, so I’m always trying to use babelfish to sift through forums, reviews, blogs and emails to find out what people are saying about the game.
What I found really interesting about your review was the comments about the comparisons between the American and Japanese educational system. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was writing that section with my own educational background (both as a student and teacher) coloring what I was saying. Of course the section MUST have a “as seen by an American” slant to it, but that never occurred t me at all. Weird!
I’m not sure why we sell more books to other countries then we do domestically, except of course that other countries make up 99% of the world. That still doesn’t explain why we seem to have less foreign detractors then domestic ones. As you point out, the name offends no matter where you are from.
Could you really not get anyone to try the game? Did you ask women? I always find that women are way more willing to play then guys.
Jake
December 20, 2007 at 6:47 am |
No, I did manage to get a group running, with 5 or 6 players in the end, and it was very much fun, once people got comfortable with the best friend / rival mechanics. As a matter of fact, on the second week-end of january, I’ll be at another convention (Morpheus in Herne) where I plan to offer another game of PE. (On week-end conventions lasting from Friday evening through Sunday evening, I usually offer two games, one an indie system and the other a mainstream one such as CoC, Realms of Arcania, Star wars d20, Star Wars d6 or somesuch.
Depending on the convention, here in Germany you might even get an all-female group for a mainstream (or indie) system, and people usually aren’t that afraid to try something new. After all, we go to a con to play with other players than usual, and try something new – a new system thus isn’t that much of a step over here. At the Pogo the PE round was evently split male-female, but the Call of Cthulhu Now group I led on Sunday was almost all-female (except for me, there was only one other guy, the rest were women.
Two of the players (people I meet regularly on conventions) told me through ICQ that they downloaded the ’short rules’ and had a game at home as well because they liked it so much.
December 20, 2007 at 6:56 am |
Oh, I completely forgot… Yes, the Japanese school system is modeled on the American – a result of WW2, iIRC. When I went to school, we didn’t have something like Homeroom, and in Germany teachers came to the pupils’ classrooms, something which you specifically mentioned as a japanese thung as well. So, I take it, in the USA usually the teachers stay put and the pupils wander around?
Another thing common to Japanese and US schools are the lockers – in German schools, we don’t have them, people just take their books for the day to school and class, and bak home in the afternoon – after all, at last for about the first ten years, school ended at about noon-ish when I was young. It has changed a bit in Germany since then, but I had to explain the ideas of lockers and all-day schooling to my players as well.
*checks watch* Oh, and now I have to leave for work. (It’s 8 o’clock in the morning over here)
December 20, 2007 at 7:08 am |
Well good, I’m glad everyone had fun.
U.S. tv shows featuring high schools make it look like we have a really uniform educational system (as well as a really awful one), but as far as I can tell there’s a huge amount of variation from school to school, state to state and district to district. I suspect the idea of a homeroom and students that move from class to class is pretty universal over here, but I can’t say for sure. I’ve worked in at least one school where that wasn’t the case.
Jake
January 3, 2008 at 5:55 pm |
The Japanese school system was originally based on the German system during the Meiji Restoration. Due to the American occupation after WWII the American system was adopted with some definite changes.
For instance all schools in Japan are funded equally from a national system and proscribed school books are taken from a national education ministry chosen list.
Basically some American similarities except its nationalized instead of regionalized. The teachers moving is also different.
The legal system and political system used to take a lot from Germany and Britain, often more from Germany. The emperor system made them more inclined to democratic royalty systems than America’s non-royal democracy. Of course many of these structures were altered or completely redone after WWII. Once Japan regained political control though they kept what were popular or conveniant changes and jettisoned those that didn’t hold over well.
“Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II” is a book by John Dower and is very impressive scholarly work on the American occupation of Japan, the changes they made and what the Japanese were doing to help or hinder the different processes.
I’m sure there’s a number of good academic books about the political and social structures during the Meiji period but the ones I’ve read have all been very focused. While they have passing mentions of the school systems which they all say was based off the German system with some British elements they do not detail what those aspects are.
The American system as Jake mentioned is very “individualistic” of course. We Americans are all about individual freedoms and so if you make enough money to live in a good school district than your children deserve a good education. If you can’t or won’t afford to live in a school district and won’t pay for private schooling then you get what you get.
The higher education system is quite different in America than it is in Japan or parts of Europe (I don’t know European systems that well so can’t say for certain). I’m 33 and entered college for the first time officially when I was 30. Not something you can really do in Japan. Also if my uncle or someone in my family had attended the college of my choosing, my chances of entering would be higher, same goes for if someone in my family had say bought the institution a library building. Not so in Japan. Also sports scholarships are more lucrative in America than Japan and can over ride bad scores, which I don’t believe happens in Japan.
Anyways, I’m rambling now. I can inquire more about the educational system pre-American occupation next week in my ‘Japan in 1940′ class. I know some of the specifics of the educational system, mostly those based around the emperor system will be a focus of the class.
-Matt