Saturday, January 10, 2004

“WAH! STUPID RABBIT!” yelled Naota whilst playing Super Mario 64, “I’m gonna get you this time!”

For the past forty-eight hours, Naota has been on an otaku binge. He has gotten no sleep at all. This sad 13-year-old boy, who coincidentally has the same name as the main character of his favorite anime, hasn’t even left his dark room except to use the bathroom. When this all started two days ago, he was watching nothing but giant monster movies. This soon gave way to watching anime and reading manga with a flashlight. Now, at the climax of his binge, he is trying to capture the gold rabbit of Mario 64 who has just appeared in the basement of Peach’s Castle.

“Hah! Got you now,” he said, about to corner the rabbit, “ Just sit tight and… jump Mario… Bah! Missed again!”

The rabbit just stared mockingly back at Mario, as if he relished the fact that he could escape the grubby paws of an over-weight plumber.

“Fine! I’m going to get the 100 coin star in Lethal Lava Level! When I come back,” Naota snickered, “You’re gonna wish you were never included in this game.”

Not two seconds after Naota made Mario jump into the Lethal Lava Level painting, his lights came on and his television and Nintendo 64 shut off. He turned around to figure out what had happened only to find his mother holding two plugs and an angry face.

“Naota! What did I tell you?!” his mother said in a stern voice.

Naota feebly replied, “Don’t play video games or watch anime while you and dad are gone for the weekend… um… because it’s summer and I need to get out more… and b-because that I’m not getting enough exercise.”

“Partially. But don’t you remember? You were grounded from them because of your terrible report card!” his mom said as calm as she could.

“Oh! Heh. I guess you’re right!”

“Yes I am, and don’t ‘oh heh’ me! Now put your shoes on! You’re going to spend the rest of the day at the park!”

“But mom.”

“No buts about it. Either you get your shoes on and get in the car, or I’ll just go sell all of your Evangelion stuff on Ebay!”

Too tired to argue with his mother, Naota did as he was told. Also, it helped that he wasn’t exactly willing to lose all of his hard-earned Evangalion paraphernalia. The last time his mother had made a threat like this, she followed through. Thus, Naota had to say goodbye to all of his precious Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Upon getting into his mother’s car, he quickly fell asleep.

*

When they arrived at the park, Naota’s mother woke him up, handed him a book, and said, “ Now I will be back this evening to pick you up. Try to make some friends. Try to exercise. Read this book. Do something. Just don’t leave this park to go to the anime store. If you do, you will be without your Evangelion collection, and you will be grounded for three months.”

Without a word, Naota nodded and got out of the car with the book his mother gave him. His mother said goodbye and drove off. Noticing a nearby tree, Naota walked over to it and plopped down beneath it. Though he didn’t intend on reading the book that had been forced upon him, he opened it up and began to stare at the title page.

“Hmpf. Alice in Wonderland. What a dumb piece of literature this is,” Naota said to himself.

The next minute, he was asleep. Soon enough, he began to dream. In his dream, he was flying over the ocean as if he were a super saiyan. However, this didn’t last for long. He was suddenly transported to a cliff over looking the ocean.

“Wow, pretty,” he mused.

Then a giant moth flew over him, toward the horizon.

“Is that? Yeah! It’s Mothra,” he began to yell, “ I LOVE YOU MOTHRA! COME BACK! I WANT TO RIDE YOU!”

But this was to no avail. Mothra could not hear him. The beast was just too far away. Before this occured to Naota, Godzilla burst from the water wearing a Mario hat and tackled Mothra.

Naota gasped, “ Whoa!”

Then Godzilla spun around and gave the peace sign saying, “Here we go!” to the fanfare that is heard when a star is collected on Mario 64.

Next to Naota, a green pipe shot out of the ground. He stared at it in disbelief for a second. He could hear a weird noise coming from the pipe. Instinctively, he gazed down into the pipe.

As he did so, Excel from Excel Saga jumped out of the pipe and hit Naota with an over sized mallet screaming, “Hail Lord Ilpalazzo!”

Surprised, bewildered, and in some unexpected pain, Naota fell unconscious in his own dream. When he regained consciousness in his dream, he could feel that he was lying in water. Not but maybe two feet away, he heard an unfamiliar voice.

The voice said, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing on the basement floor?”

To be continued…

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