Duality

Wednesday was my last research meeting. Made a few final edits to the documentation before turning in my work. And so ended my direct involvement with the MCMA project at BWRC. I doubt that will be the last time I go there though. Artem—the guy who will be taking over my position—will probably need at least a little help understanding my work. There wasn’t really anyone to help me when I took over Artem’s work (well, I took over for Ted, who really didn’t do much; long story), so it took me forever to get going. Yeah, I took over Artem’s work and he’ll be taking over mine.

The goal of the MCMA project is to create a multi-carrier, multi-antenna system. As far as I know, the theory behind using multiple carrier frequencies and multiple antennas for communication networks is well-established, but so far, no one has created a system that makes use of it. The MCMA hardware consists of multiple, single-antenna boards. Each board has an FPGA, an ADC/DAC chip (analog-to-digital, digital-to-analog), various input connectors, and an RF daughter-card with an antenna and PLL. (Thank you, Wikipedia, though don’t think I don’t know what each of those do =)). My job was to program the FPGA to handle all of those components and do basic testing.

Artem left me a bunch of different files. Each file was tailored for a single test: one file to test the ADC, one file to test the DAC, etc. So each time I wanted to test something else, I had to load a different bit file onto the board. Not very elegant. He also chose to program the ADC/DAC by repeatedly sending commands. Not very elegant either.

I integrated the functionality of all the different files into a single file and created a user interface (using buttons and jumpers) to change settings on-the-fly. I also changed the way the ADC/DAC was programmed to a state-machine-based system (hello, CS majors =)). Instead of repeatedly sending commands, it would only send commands in reponse to user input.

Screenshots from Simulink

• System overview (same as above)
• Signal subsystem and jumper interface
• My pride and joy: ADC/DAC control subsystem
• Individual state machines within the ADC/DAC control

Translated, the title of this show is Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (MSAA), and it is hands down one of the funniest animes I have ever seen.

Gai-who?
For the anime newbies out there, Gainax may not be a company you know of by name, but you’ve probably seen, or at least hear of, one of their anime series. Furi Kuri (FLCL), Mahou Tsukai Tai (Magic Users Club), and—most famously—Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE) are all anime series that have come out of the Gainax’s studios. For anyone who has seen NGE, you know what they can do to fuck with your mind. And to anyone who’s seen FLCL, you also know what they can do to fuck with your mind. Gainax is probably most famous for making the most mind-fucking anime’s ever.

So, what’s the difference?
Both FLCL and NGE are excellent examples of the work Gainax is capable of. However, they both screw with your head in very different ways: NGE with it’s intense psychological overtones and FLCL with it’s “where the FUCK did that come from?” Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is in the same category as FLCL (and RE: Cutie Honey, if anyone’s seen that Gainax production as well).

…wtf?
I, like many other people, find incredible humor in the “wtf” side of comedy. The “that was absolutely the last thing I could have imagined happening” category. For people like me, MSAA is a godsend. Not just for it’s random sense of humor, but for its amazing sense of style throughout it all. When MSAA changes tones, it doesn’t just change the story, it changes the setting, the character, and even the animation style. You can really tell that the creators knew exactly what they wanted and poured their hearts into it.

It all starts with a boy and a girl…
And in this case, yes, yes it does. The story starts with young boy and girl around the age of 10. They’re childhood friends and have grown up together. They live in the shopping arcade known as Abenobashi with each of their parents owning different shops. The whole town is protected by containing perfect Chi and maintaining four statues, one in each point of the town (North, South, East and West). But when one of them is broken, strange things start happening and it seems to center around our two young heroes.

Where to go from here
With their town falling down around them, literally, they decided to follow a rainbow bridge which leads them to a castle they swear must be in France. However, it turns out that things start to look very similar until they realize that they are in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade—only this happens to be the Sword and Sorcery Shopping Arcade. Here, they encounter random enemies they must fight (and end up always losing to) until they reach the final boss and destroy it by making it’s breast’s explode. Yeah…did I mention that there’s a mole with sunglasses who pops up to tell different things about the enemies like HP, name, etc?

It can’t get weirder than that
Oh, but it can. It can, and it will. The wonderful thing about MSAA is the hundreds of pop culture references they have thrown in. MSAA knows it’s only an anime and because of that, completely doesn’t take itself seriously. Here is a short list of the various Shopping Arcade’s they encounter and a few of the spoofs that you might find (don’t worry, these aren’t really plot spoilers because it’s hard to determine exactly what the plot even is):

The Great Milky Way Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Hong Kong Combat Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Rocky, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Fighting Video Games, Dragonball Z

The Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: The Flintstones, Tarzan

The Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Film Noir, Gangster Movies, ‘Chibi’ Anime

The Exciting Campus Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Hentai, All Girls High School

The Fairy Tale Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Disneyland, Cinderella

The Battlefield Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Rambo, The Bombing of Pearl Harbor (they bombed Pearl Barbor….Hilarious!)

The Hollywood Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: The Terminator, Knight Rider, Robocop, Escape From New York, Twister, Jaws, North By Northwest, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, Friday The 13th, The Truman Show, Titanic, Back To The Future, and many many more.

So, have I piqued your interest yet? If so, then go out and get this anime right now. Go to Fry’s, go to Best Buy, heck, you can even get it at Netflix. Just go get it now. There are only 13 episodes and if you can’t dedicate a little over 5 hours of your life to something as entertaining as this, then you’ve got a problem.

Final Thoughts
This is one of the most original, well-made, and downright hilarious anime’s I have ever seen. I guarantee there is NO way that you can’t get a laugh out of this. However, one word of warning. Do NOT listen to the American dubbed version for ANY reason. It is absolutely god-awful and does this show no justice at all. Simply watch the original Japanese with subtitles and you’ll do fine. I can not recommend Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi highly enough. Trust me, you’ll love it.

As most of you probably don’t know, today is Namco’s 50th birthday, and to celebrate the momentous occasion, Pac-Man has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “most successful coin operated game” in history. You can read more about the celebration at Gamespot.