Well my Tuesday meeting with the doctor was a little anticlimactic.  More poking and prodding.  A failed attempt to drain more blood from the knee capsule (apparently the remaining blood is clotted).  Another costly cast.  A bungled attempt to x-ray it again.  An MRI scheduled for Thursday, to determine the extent of tissue damage, and a consultation next Tuesday.  So I guess I’ll have to wait for answers. 

In the meantime, I got crutches to hobble around and my new cast lets me wear a shoe.  While I am mobile, I’m unbelievably slow, especially climbing and descending stairs.  My room is 4 floors from the street; the kitchen is 2 floors from my room.  I’m also skeptical that my crutches will fully support my weight for a long time – I am a little heavier than the average Korean.

The English support was definitely better but not enough that I felt completely comfortable.  It’s starting to approach that threshold between amusement and alarm.  I know these posts are long, so here’s a dialogue version of how today went down…

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Not actually true. Illustration below.

So Episode 5 and 6 are both currently in the works, but neither is ready for release today. There was an odd sequence of events occurring across the few weeks this footage was collected during, so it’s been difficult for me to sort it all out.

In the meantime check out our awesome new shirt designs, being printed as we speak!

Well our time in Seoul has taken an unexpected turn…right to the Korean University hospital.  Basically, Saturday night I fell and dislocated my right knee – the knee cap decided to adjust itself all the way to the right, sticking straight to the right side.  The pain was excruciating, and I had a wonderful time popping it back into place.  I promise I’ll have another post about that story, but here I want to focus on our 6-hour stint in a hospital with no English-speaking staff.  It’s a very long story, so you’ll have to bear with me.

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Dear Icepack: you are my only true friend.

One of the perks of working for Jet Set Zero is that I get to make my own hours and, more importantly, my own office. From a very young age I’ve suffered from pretty severe lower back pain. It was actually one of the reasons I had to leave my job animating in New York: I just couldn’t handle sitting in an office chair anymore.

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Yes there were many strange things we encountered while trooping through Tokyo, and the odd signs were just the beginning.  Products and services that I had never imagined – and even still am baffled by.  Akihabara, ground zero for otaku – “super nerd” culture, oriented around manga and video games – definitely hit a climax. I wish so much I had seen someone sporting an Obama mask, screaming “yes we can,” standing next to someone in the mask on the right…Obama was heavily supported in Japan, and we found the paraphernalia to prove it!

Not all of the bizarre products we found were PG-rated though, and the girls in cute maid costumes handing out tissues on the sidewalk were just the beginning.

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A few more days in Seoul and I managed to get a new camera.  After my last one got stolen in Vietnam its fan-fucking-tastic to be able to snap photos out and around on the streets again.  Selected shots from the week inside.

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We were literally the first foreigners to step foot in Tsukiji Fish Market after it reopened to tourists – 6am, Monday morning, Day 1 when everyone was just waiting for disaster to strike.  It wasn’t until we were actually in the belly of warehouse, navigating the cramped aisles and dodging the market goers, that I realized how much havoc a single oblivious (or disrespectful) tourist could create, much less a whole crowd of them. 

You see, Tsukiji isn’t like a museum or a zoo, where you observe the attractions from a distance; here, we could climb inside the metaphorical exhibit, no rope to stop us from touching the fish, taking flash photographs 3 feet from fish sellers simply doing their regular 6am job, or bumping into fishermen lopping off the heads of still-writhing fish. 

I honestly don’t blame Tsukiji for banning tourists, and I will be surprised if a similar ban isn’t reinstituted.  Nonetheless, that morning, we were permitted to wander around, utilizing the traffic-dodging skills we honed in Saigon.  Past all tables of blood and gore…

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Fish and nerds both have their own district in Tokyo, but Jed must once again make his home elsewhere…

So, there have been a lot of changes with JS0 recently, but one of them isn’t our release schedule: we should be back to every Monday with regularity now that our new site, trailer, and merch (hint hint, it’s awesome!) is underway.

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This video is the first in a stunning series from the mind of Bryan Gomez–videographer, field producer, badass–who conceived of the timelapse, shot it, and cut it together himself. All I did was stand there. But for that story, continue reading.

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