Timeless Grey

New Navbar and Chatbox

2011-04-29T23:11:00.002+08:00

Made a new css based navbar and added a new chatbox to replace the old one that got spammed to hell by bots. I only made them with firefox in mind so I'm not sure how they'll turn out in other browsers but their functionality should remain the same.

Manga Review: Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

2011-04-28T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge
Author: Takimoto Tatsuhiko, Saiki Junichi
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Psychological, Supernatural, Romance, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: Coming from the same author of “Welcome to the NHK”, this is a prior work of his that was adapted years after the NHK manga started serializing. It revolves a young aimless teenager who finds escape from his daily stress through the fantastic duels held between a tall, unkillable, raincoat-clad, chainsaw wielding hulk of a man and the super-strong, super-cute high school girl he just happened to run into after impulsively stealing some meat from a convenience store. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or just a result of me being quite genre savvy but I found the mystery behind the battles with the girl’s nemesis to be incredibly transparent. It’s got a very basic and predictable plot and the symbolism isn’t exactly subtle but it is an enjoyable enough series with some fun quirky characters. Maybe someone new to manga trying to be deep will find this to be a profound exploration of very relatable issues as indicated by most of the reviews on mangaupdates but to me it’s nothing special - in fact I felt that the symbolism was only there to make readers feel clever when it was clearly spelled out by the author. Still a decent read though so give it wouldn’t hurt to give a try. It’s only two volumes long after all.

Video: Madoka Magica MAD - "My Sun" by KOKIA

2011-04-25T20:45:00.001+08:00

【まどかマギカ】私の太陽【KOKIA】
Seems that hisami_nathuki(Got the name wrong last time. KOKIA is the artist singing, not the MAD's maker) released another Madoka Magica MAD set to a KOKIA song in the same style as the last one. Unlike that one, the follow-up is based on the show's ending and prominently features Homura and Madoka in the video. Personally I don't think of it quite as good as the last one but it does make me appreciate the ending even more. I really do find it odd that it's only been a few days and yet here I am, already looking fondly back on the ending. Guess the all the new fanart just keeps reminding me how touching it was. I now think of it more as a healing reconstruction anime rather than the grimdark deconstruction that it was till the last episode and that really speaks volumes about the ending. Seriously, it completely turned the whole series on its head so fast and hard that I can't help but feel like I went through Stockholm syndrome because of it. Gen Urobuchi stabbed my humanity with blades tragedy and despair only to hook me up to a morphine drip laced with hope at the very end. Only someone as manipulative as QB could do something like that so I will stand by opinion that the white Faustian furball is in fact his author avatar. Here are some MadokaxHomura pics I dug up from Gelbooru.

You can find more Goddess Madoka images here.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica's Ending Explained!

2011-04-24T15:32:00.015+08:00

It's really been a while since I last posted but with the hustle and bustle of university assignments coming to a close with exams approaching, I finally have it in me to get back to blogging. I haven't neglected it for so long since my O' levels(or was it AS levels? I forget) but even then I had daily manga reviews lined up for automatic posting for a whole month. Hopefully I'll really be able to get things back on track soon and renovate this place because change is in order, starting with the shoutbox since spambots have gotten into it somehow. I've got a whole bunch of new website designing skills at my disposal so I'll be experimenting with what I can get away with on blogger. Look forward to it to whomever's actually following my words.

Now onto the subject of this post - Madoka's ending. An ending with such a huge shift in tone when compared to its prior episodes that one would think this was a last minute change to the story due to executive meddling or something. I myself would have held fast to that theory but it seems that Urobuchi Gen, the writer behind the series, intended on this all along since he wanted to make a "healing" anime, which the ending actually pulled off. Seriously not what you'd expect from the guy who came up with Fate/Zero and Saya no Uta.

For its ending, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica chose to go out with Madoka wishing so that she personally sees to it that magical girls in all of time and space never become witches. By doing this she ends up recreating the entire universe and ascends from a mere human being to an omniscient, omnipresent sentient concept surpassing time that governs the end that magical girls meet. Essentially a god as Kyuubey predicted but in my opinion a "god" isn't quite right as she's more of a "rule" now. No one but her little brother and Homura remember her ever existing and the Incubators' magical girl powered entropy fixing system has changed for the better. This seeming "way out there" ending really gave Madoka Magica the last touch it needed to be called the Evangelion of this generation. I doubt it'll spark as many heated debates as the super controversial mecha series though. Pretty every loose thread's been taken care of so there's not much left to discuss except how much people like the ending and why.

In spite of the page on wtf endings that SHAFT and Urobuchi seem to have taken out of GAINAX's book, Madoka Magica's ending was actually quite well done and had little to no mindfukery to dick the fans around with. Sure, it does give off the impression of being an all too convenient suspension of disbelief shattering deus ex machina that was way out there and far more than a bit "much" but once you get past all the weirdness, you'll find that everything worked right within the established bounds the series set up beforehand and that had it been handled a little bit better, it wouldn't have come off as such an underwhelming finish for roller coaster ride that was this series. Let's review the main issues people seem to have with the ending:

Madoka's Wish
If it was as simple as wishing for no more witches why didn't anyone wish for it before? Simple, because no else but Madoka could have made it work. From what I can tell, Kyubey's wish granting system works based on how much potential a girl has when they go magical and the extent of their wish depends on that potential as it is implied that there are limitations to what can be wished for when Kyubey questions if Madoka's wish can even be granted. Her potential as a magical girl built up over the countless loops that Homura's been through and judging by the fact that she managed to oneshot Walpurgisnacht by the fourth iteration, there was just no way anyone but her could have pulled off that wish. Madoka also had what most magical girls seem to lack, a thorough understanding of what becoming a magical girl means.

Scene at the End
We see Homura walking all alone in a dessert with dark murky ethereal wings and we hear Madoka cheering her on. I've seen speculation on this taking in the far future where human civilization is mostly gone and that those wings are signs of her ready to witch out but I highly doubt that(though I really wouldn't put it past her). The most likely explanation behind this scene is that the demons raised up a barrier and Homura just happens to be fighting them alone because she's gotten THAT good with her powers. Right after the Sayaka scene we see a demon burning up and the scenery around it depixelating. Given that there had to have been a good deal of damage done to their surroundings had they been fighting the 3m tall demon in the train station, the lack of any visible damage to the station indicates that they fought inside a barrier like they did with witches. As for the wings... the power of eternal love between Homura and Madoka?

The New System
Under the new magical girl system, the girls no longer turn into witches and instead disappear when they were supposed to. Curses now manifest in the form of the giant robed demons for them to fight and generate emotional energy in the soul gems for improving entropy instead of collecting. The Incubators directly have to function as grief seeds for them to unload all their grief so they no longer have to fight each other for resources or be "cannibals" by slaying witches. It's now in QB's best interests to keep the girls safe since they'd just lose all the potential grief they could have reaped from the soul gems meaning that the girls won't get actively screwed by the ones playing the role of their magical pet.

However, I feel I do have to point out that the girls are generally still just as expendable and renewable as entropy staving resources as they were when witches existed. Not quite back to the traditional models of magical pets but still pragmatic enough to leave QB the same as ever, just no longer as a potential enemy. I also have to wonder about the curses manifesting as demons. As shown in the episode with Sayaka, Madoka's basically collecting grief energy and allowing magical girls to die in peace but what does she do with that energy? The Incubators don't seem to be capable collecting it once the soul gems are gone and curses never manifested as demons in the former universe so the only logical conclusion is that Madoka's causing that grief to turn into these demons. I'd even go as far as to speculate that she's converting them herself and that the demons are her familiars in order to maintain universal balance. Madoka having to endanger the girls herself certainly adds a seemingly sinister consequence to her wish but it's still objectively better for the girls this way and I do like how much more bitter this theory makes the ending. Sorry if this ruins your happy impression of the ending but you should know that out of all the characters, QB the pseudo-schadenfreude was the only one I could relate to.

mfw when I wrote the previous paragraph. Also happens to be a few of my display pics.
In the end, I must say that Madoka Magica's ending is not an easy one to appreciate with just one sit through. They pulled a Decon Recon Switch in the span of one episode and the result is a very difficult finale to process properly. Too much was done in the last installment and all the developments overwhelm underlying emotion behind the scenes. It took me a rewatch to genuinely like the ending for the emotions in it and not just the consistency of the writing. They also really could have stood to tone down the cosmicness of Madoka's and Homura's farewell scene so it wouldn't have come off as more supernatural than touching and cut down the epilogue time so that it doesn't take away the power of the epic first half of the episode as much. While the finale did let me down by not ending as strongly as it the series was built up to be, it didn't detract from the show's overall quality. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica was not quite a masterpiece in my opinion but it came really close.

[EDIT] Okay then... We now have a Church of Madoka. Should have seen it coming but I really didn't. I can't imagine how ridiculous this is going to get.

Fractale Ending Rant

2011-04-02T19:33:00.006+08:00

Original hair colors here. One less plot hole in the manga.

Just finished watching the last episode of Fractale and in all honesty it was rather disappointing. The fact that I'm actually taking the time to write this rant out should be quite indicative of how annoyed I was by the way the series ended. The series was actually pretty good overall with its fascinating setting but then they wasted all the building up they did when the last episode rolled around. It was as if they decided to switch out the original ending with something that would look more mainstream. It really wouldn't surprise me at all if that was the case since the whole hair recoloring thing was supposed to be so that the series would appeal better to regular folks who only watch Ghibli films for their anime experience. I was expecting something more epic as the truth behind Phryne and Nessa being the key to rebooting the Fractale system. Here's how I think the series should have done with it:

It's revealed that the Fractale system isn't just a worldwide augmented reality system but is actually a reality within a reality simulation that everyone's plugged into. Every time they reboot the system, they're actually creating another iteration of the reality and sending everyone's consciousness into the new reality hence the reason the series is named after the word Fractal - "A rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole". It'd explain why exactly rebooting would save them all when the problem with the system is the hardware deterioration of the satellites and why is it that Nessa can exist in those dead zones where the system isn't supposed to work.

From there I even speculated that Dias and the high priestess were the previous iterations of Clain and Phryne that knew the truth behind the system and that they took polar views on what should be done about it. That part was mainly because of how intentionally similar they made him look like a grown up Clain along with the whole clone thing but even I think that's a bit of a stretch. Thinking about it now, that theory could still fit in there with the ending but that doesn't make it any less of a letdown. Yamakan has failed to save anime but will that actually stop him from acting like the drama queen he is? I think not. People like him just don't give up so I doubt he'll actually follow up on his threat to leave the industry. Just hope he's learned to shut his big trap and actually puts his money where his mouth is in the future.

Video: A Boquet for the Magical Girls by KOKIA

2011-03-24T12:50:00.002+08:00

For those of you not in the know, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica's final two episodes won't be showing till mid-April so those of you waiting in anticipation for 11's stream twelve hours should save themselves from being in left in despair later by finding something else to do. I myself was shocked and filled with a sudden emptiness when I heard about the latest delay but then after a few seconds it hit me that April wasn't all that far away so I got better. Time goes by so quickly these days. Being a Meguca fan is indeed suffering. And I really need to get back to blogging on a regular basis. That's why I decided post up this Madoka MAD by KOKIA that should relieve the emptiness a little bit but it may also induce some level of sadness as it's going to remind you just how bad the girls of the series have it. The song certainly is nice to listen to but it's the imagery that will get to you for this video. Enjoy their grief.

魔法少女に花束を by KOKIA

And if that wasn't enough to fill your usual Meguca is suffering quota for the week then this speculah image probably will. I expect something of at least this level for the canon end since it is Gen Urobuchi's spawn after all.

Translated image courtesy Gelbooru.

Video: Ashita he by Rap-bito, Clear & Ryo

2011-03-10T23:51:00.008+08:00

This seems to be Ryo's latest work and it's the first song in long while that he's released outside of Supercell. I was under the impression he wouldn't be making any new songs to post on nico nico douga but to my pleasant surprise there it was sitting there at no. 16 of yesterday's rankings. This PV certainly made up for my disappointment with "Perfect Day" despite amazing animation work they did on the song's PV. "Perfect Day", Supercell's latest pv showed up there not too long ago but I felt that it was kinda underwhelming for a Supercell song so I didn't bother to post it up till now. I certainly did like it more than "Utakata no Hanabi" and Nagi's vocals are amazing as usual, might even be her best work so far, but these slow paced songs they come up with just aren't all that fun to listen to. "Ashita he", Towards Tomorrow in english, starts off slow for effect but then grows into a strong, sentimental tune matching the encouragement that the girl in the video is getting. Here's hoping Nagi or Wotamin does a cover of this song cause it's quite easy to imagine how amazing this would sound with voices like theirs.

Towards Tomorrow by Rap-bito, Clear & Ryo

Perfect Day by Supercell

Additionally, let's hope the situation in Japan doesn't get any worse. It's only been day one and there's always that possibility of a second quake coming soon.

Video: Charlotte Dunois Circulation

2011-03-08T22:20:00.004+08:00

Renai circulation strikes once again the form of an Infinite Stratos MAD based on the fact that the most popular girl in the super dense main character's harem is also voiced by the same seiyuu who sang the song way back when Bakemonogatari was airing. I haven't actually watched the country wars anime past the first episode since it reeked of generic harem and cg mecha but even I have to admit that Charlotte Dunois is the epitome of the concept that otaku know as moe. Providing that Hanazawa Kana doesn't voice another incarnation of heart attack inducing cuteness this year(Based on how many roles she's been getting lately, it's actually quite possible), I am absolutely sure that she's going to bag the Saimoe contest this year by a huge landslide. Be sure to enjoy watching this video cause she's the reason I'll be marathoning what I suspect is a less than mediocre series when it ends.

WARNING! THIS VIDEO IS LIABLE TO CAUSE INTENSE BOUTS OF HNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG! WARNING!

Movie Review: The King's Speech

2011-02-20T21:25:00.004+08:00

I don't like historical stories. Whether the old bygone period is set in warring Japan, colonial America or jolly old England I am very disinclined to pick up any kind of story set in those times. This particular aversion of mine could be traced back to my schooling days where I had to take History as a subject and thanks to my brain's horrible memory with dates, it has become a subject that I have very few fond memories of. So then what was I doing at the movies watching one of those based on a true story period pieces? I needed to do something while I waited for my brother to be done with the party and this was the highest rated movie available there. Were those ratings well deserved? I happy to say that they really were.

The movie follows the life of the Duke of York a.k.a. Bertie and his trials and tribulations in the decade prior to his coronation as King George VI. This particular English monarch was known to have a speech impediment in the form of a stammer and the story depicts his attempts to overcome it with the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue. Of course, some dramatic and artistic liberties were taken here but from I've read, Mr. Logue's methods were as unconventional in real as they were on the silver screen. Some of the lines were also based on notes left behind in the real man's journal too though I honestly can't tell which ones were totally made up and which ones had a basis to go on. I really am curious to know whether or not the man actually did make a prince shout out "fuckfuckshitshitshittyshitshishitbuggerfuckshitfuckbloodyfuckfuckfuckandtits". That's not the actual line from the movie though, I paraphrased it due to my shoddy memory.

As you can most probably infer from the previous paragraph, the movie has its fair share of humor mixed in with the drama. I have always had a high regard for the British wit this movie features some truly brilliant bits of dialogue. Lionel is a huge source of all the subtle comedy that you'll see here as he likes to go around jabbing sticks around at authority. The man had big enough balls to sit on some holy chair and sacrilegiously point out that people have carved their names in the wood that seated a fair number of "assholes"(His words, not mine). The scripting was obviously top-notch while the cinematography that went with it was fitfully impeccable. No scene was wasted and no reason to leave your seat, even for a little while, was given. After the magnificent first and a half hours of the film I just couldn't bear to miss any of the last twenty minutes even for the toilet break I was in dire need of and I would recommend anyone finding themselves in a similar situation to mine to follow my lead as missing those last few minutes would mean doing an injustice to not only yourself but to every moviegoer in there with you.

Do not misunderstand my praises though. My words thus far may seem to paint the movie as surprise comedy but the movie is still at heart a dramaticly heartwarming tale of a man that fought hard to serve his duty to the best of his abilities. Colin Firth portrayal of the burdened man was so convincing in his anguish that I actually found his struggles to be rather moving. Watching the guy go through speech therapy looks incredibly comedic at first but gradually it becomes so very clear just how big of a hurdle this was to Bertie. By the time the climax arrives, you're going to be on the edge of your seats, silently cheering him on, as he works his way through that lengthy three minute speech. Many movies failed to induce tension into their audience and where so, so, so many life-or-death explosion-filled battles were incapable of doing so, this three minute speech by a man still struggling with his speech impediment had my complete and utter attention as he tried not to stumble on the devilish contraption that is the wireless. I honestly wanted to join in on the clapping that shortly followed the king's speech but it was a very bare theater and I wasn't so sure if I wanted to get odd looks.

In short, the movie was marvelously spectacular and deserves a going to the cinema right now. They even extended the screenings to the rest of the world after it did so well back on native soil even though it was never meant to. Fellow Bruneians should know that the screenings are set at the new smaller theaters with the very comfy chairs and surprisingly chilly air-conditioning. I will certainly be adding this to my list of favorite films and I hope that it wins whatever awards they've got lined up for grabbing. I dare anyone who's seen this to try and tell me why Colin Firth shouldn't be getting the Best Actor award of 2010 for playing Bertie cause there's simply no competition with this role.

A Fascinatingly Underwhelming Dream in a Quiet Mind

2011-02-14T22:14:00.003+08:00

Just woke up from a most interesting dream. It was interesting in the way that my dreams are normally of a fantastic and grand nature, encompassing amazing worlds, strange surreal concepts and strings of events that make very little sense if I were to try explain them. My latest one came to me in one unintended cat nap after having taken a shower preceded by an exhausting session of training. Though I am a little annoyed at having lost three hours of wakefulness, this dream I had gave me a very rare opportunity to think in a way I can't even recall doing at all - let me think slowly and quietly.

Basically this dream just involved me thinking. I had just finished reading the first part of the second installment in Nisio Isin's Zaregoto light novel series and my eyes felt a little heavy. Between that and the comfort of my bed, I should have gotten out of there asap if I didn't want to lose any time awake but you only need one guess to predict the outcome. Sadly, the sweet temptations of a short, peaceful slumber is all too enticing to me and takes much, much more willpower to overcome than I care to admit. If this world worked like an RPG, my status screen would show a 0% resistance towards the "sleep" status condition and I'd be completely useless in an area where the enemies specialized in attacks that induced that particular condition.

There I lay, halfway between wakefulness and unconsciousness knowing precisely what consequences waited for me if I continued to extend my rest. On what was probably my eighth internal debate, I had already fallen into dreamland even though I was still lucid enough to realize it. Realize it I did not as the dream i had was a continuation of my reality at the time: I was dreaming that I was awake and trying to decide when I should get up. Before long I just decided to continue on with my rest but I found that for some reason I didn't seem to be getting any sleepier and that for some reason my mind was at peace. No buzzings and whispers that I have to drown out with my "louder", more deliberate thoughts but an actual period of calm and silence that just seemed so odd and new to me. Fascination took hold of me and I gave in to the impulse to see how long this quiet period would last and lied there on my dream bed, unmoving and unthinking for I don't know how long. Eventually, a thought came out of me. A speculation on the book I just read, a clearly composed prediction that I never considered consciously and it came to me alone in perfect clarity. Another one quickly followed, still quiet, clear, unconscious in nature and all on its own. I was amazed. My thoughts had never been so... unmessy. For once I couldn't describe it as lots of trains leaving a single station and arriving at lots of different stations along lots of different routes at different times.

Even in my clearest moments, I still had background thinking going underway though they all pertained my assessment of whatever situation I was dealing with. This was different and felt completely new to me. It really made me wonder if other people thought like that and if my level headed thinking and inability to give in to panic or fear was because my way of thinking made it much, much harder for me to feel overwhelmed. It still sounds as arrogant as I thought it did prior to my dream but now I had my own instance where thinking worked in such a manner and it gave me something to make a comparison with. I can't claim myself to be a genius but I have to agree with the consensus that I am at the very least, very clever. Still, it's not a cleverness in the proper and smart way since my methods and motives rarely prioritize being proper over enjoyment but it's certainly a cleverness that gives me an edge over most. It does get cumbersome at times, especially at times when it would be better not to notice what others overlook be it intentional on their part or otherwise. Hopefully, I will get future opportunities to experience so I can understand people more easily. It would be good to refresh my understanding of fear as well. After all, it wouldn't do to advertise myself as a master of fear if I were to get so out of touch with it that I've forgotten what overcoming it feels like.

Videos: Renai Circulation CAN gross you out

2011-02-12T18:45:00.000+08:00

Renai Circulation, an anime opening engineered to induce an overload of moe into all those who watched it by means of soft, whimsical colors visually, sweet seemingly innocent vocals courtesy of Kanazawa Hana aurally and the cute, adorable antics of the character it's about. It pleases me to say I have found a remix(?) video that packs as much of a punch as the original only not in the way that the original was intended to. This video is an MMD among many that made it into the top 100 on nico nico douga's rankings today and it managed to not only tickle my funny bone but also give me goosebumps at how disgusting seeing some of the characters inserted into the video singing their takes on the song. I don't know if that was intentional or not but that Doraemon guy and Snake singing were very disturbing. Have a watch and see what I mean.

Renai Circulation MMD by 瓜玉子さん

Original Renai Circulation OP Bluray Version

Orchestral Version by Taste

Manga Review: Our Dear Tamura-kun

2011-02-09T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Our Dear Tamura-kun
Author: Takemiya Yuyuko, Kurafuji Sachi
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: Hahaha. It’s been a while since I’ve read a love comedy series this entertaining. I normally don’t go for pure romances but this got my attention when I was browsing some raw manga thanks to its art style and the summary that went with it. And to my honest surprise, I actually liked it a lot and seeing as Toradora is one of my favorite series I should have picked this up for a read a long time ago since they’re both written by the same authors. The story is about an average high school boy by the name of Tamura Yukisada who fell for a quiet, loopy girl that moved away the summer prior and how he tries to make sense of the chaos that is a hormonal teenager’s love life. Now starting high school, he faces another girl, an ice queen, who quickly puts the two of them at odds with one another with her standoffish demeanor and her inexplicable attempts at trying to associate with him. The fact that she conked him out with a present thrown through his window meant for his brother didn’t help in the least. They soon become close to each other, close enough to share a kiss, but he isn’t sure what to make of it as he still has feelings for that odd and demure girl from his middle school days. Quite an interesting love triangle story this one is. For most part, the first girl only appears in flashbacks showing how significant they became to one another while the other girl gets closer to the lead thanks to her active attempts at befriending him despite her very, very crude methods at doing so but neither ever actually meet the other making this love triangle one very different from the norm. In the end though, it all comes down to how devoted the main character is devoted to his first love and surprisingly enough the “losing” girl handles it very maturely at the end showing off just how well developed the characters in this series are. I do have a minor gripe about how the protagonist came to his answer as the event that triggered it could only be described as a very timely coincidence that happened during a very time critical moment. But hey, that coincidence led to a satisfyingly heartwarming conclusion so I’ll have to let it slide. After all, Shakespeare had a similar thing happen in one of his stories but Romeo and Juliet is still being remembered as a classic of the classics so it’s much more forgivable in comparison since it didn’t lead to a tragedy. Here’s the figurative bottom line, I enjoyed this series immensely for its refreshing take on the love triangle plot, the depth of the characters and its great balance of light-hearted comedy and heart-wrenching drama. Even the side stories were a lot of fun to read so I do hope you won’t try to pass this up cause you’ll miss out on a good read.

Movie Review: The Green Hornet

2011-02-06T20:29:00.003+08:00

Went to watch the Green Hornet earlier when I was having a new pair of spectacles made. Hadn’t changed them in five years so I figured I needed to kill some time with a movie before they got done. The Green Hornet wasn’t even on my “watch eventually” list but compared to the rest of the stuff that they were showing I decided that I’ll go with Seth Rogen’s latest work. I liked Pineapple Express and thought the music from the trailer was pretty kickass so I forked over cash to sit in on it. By the end of it I had two questions in my mind: 1) How is a man-child like Seth Rogen not one of those lousy Hollywood hacks that dare call themselves writers? 2) When’s the sequel?

The movie stars Seth Rogen as Brit Reid a.k.a. the Green Hornet, a party animal who’s the sole heir to a major newspaper company his father created, and Jay Chou as Kato, the mysterious Chinaman who grew up on the streets to be an engineering genius that works on the cars of rich men, kicks ass like some deranged renegade Mossad agent on the run and makes coffee so good that you just can’t live without it. Brit’s a disappointment in his father’s eyes so when he kicks the bucket, he decides to have a wild night out on the town by cutting off his memorial statue’s head with the help of Kato once he finds out just how awesome his coffee maker is. This leads them to a brawl with some gangbangers that start them off on their careers as pseudo-villain heroes.

Like I mentioned before, Seth Rogen is a surprisingly good writer. Barring the first dull twenty or so minutes of the movie, the writing’s pretty damn solid and even manages to play off the usual conventions of superhero movies to the point where the movie almost seems to be a deconstruction of the genre. The main characters are, at best, morally grey as they have no qualms about doing harm to the general populace, destroying public property and outright murder. At one point I had to feel sorry for the designated villain of the movie. Sure he doesn’t look like much but that’s no reason to keep putting down his style. If anything, he should be putting down theirs. The man had a double barreled gun, single handedly took out an up and coming gang and isn’t afraid to step in and brutalize his enemies in ways that cannot be considered as anything less than overkill. It makes me wonder about the man’s self-esteem as those greenhorns somehow managed to get him to switch from his casual suitwear to that hammy lame-ass red supervillain theme he had in the end. Still, that red motif contributed a good number of jokes to the already numerous repertoire to be had, most of which were sexual innuendos that flew over the heads of my fellow moviegoers half the time.

Aside from the refreshingly lighthearted yet serious script that drove the movie, the direction deserves it share of praise too. There was one particular scene that struck me as it really set the tone for the final act of the movie where the shit gets real. Seeing the antagonist send out a hit on the Green Hornet and just how in control he was of the city’s underbelly made for a great start to it. The action scenes were incredibly good as well and the Mythbusters will have you understand just how the absurdity of it all only made the film better. It wasn’t just the overt awesomeness of the stunts that made them so much fun to watch but the subtle ways they worked out on film. Some may only appreciate seeing a land rover fly over a bush and onto a road for the novelty of the flyover itself. I appreciated seeing that from a long shot as I’ve rarely seen one it shot from that angle making it all the more impressive. That was done by one of the bad guys by the way, everyone gets a chance to shine in these scenes really. Well, everyone named at least.

I'm no fan of the original source of the story or the very premise of this movie but the staff behind it made it work. It's not brilliant, it's not deep and the pretentious will be very inclined to call this film one only the juvenile and immature would enjoy but I had a great time watching this. Man-child be damned, Seth Rogen is a good writer and I cannot consider both Pineapple Express and the Green Hornet to be flukes. I can honestly tell you that this movie was one worth watching and it's worth watching at your nearest cinema. Perhaps if you are as fortunate as I was, you might even get seated next to some aesthetically pleasing bimbos that have watched the movie already. They certainly didn't make my movie experience any worse though they did make me wonder if there's more truth than meets the eye in that comparison between myself and a certain legendary lover of bimbos and suits.

Gurren Lagann Parallel Works Series 2

2011-02-02T21:10:00.004+08:00

Heard about the new set of parallel works quite a number of months ago but I somehow forgot to check them out. From what I saw here, it seems that those rumors about Gainax animators loving their job were not unfounded. I could also see that they were working up to Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt with these cause I can see Stocking's swords in Big Building and plenty of English in Kittan Zero. All the videos are pretty interesting though if I have to pick a favorite it'd have to be The Sense of Wonder for it's great fairy tale-like ambience. The music in that one reminded me of Legend of Mana for some reason. Goodbye Dai-Gurren and Kittan Zero come pretty close too, it was nice seeing what the cast did off screen. I would like to get a full version of that jazz song in Goodbye Dai-Gurren though but I doubt that'll ever come to be. If you missed out on these videos in the past months then I would suggest you take some time and watch them. The staff put in a lot work into these and their dedication for their work shows. Also, Gong Xi Fa Cai to all who celebrate it!

Kittan Zero

The Sense of Wonder

My XXX is the Best in the Universe

Goodbye Dai-Gurren

Big Building

Kiyal's Magical Time, Three Minutes Before

Gunmen Symphonia

Manga Review: Sukimasuki

2011-01-31T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Sukimasuki
Author: Unita Yumi
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: Well this is an interesting series by the author of Usagi Drop. It’s about this guy who has a bit of a fetish with narrow see-through gaps and peeps on his next door neighbor who just so happens to leave just enough space between her curtains to give him some flashes of her in her underwear. He feels conflicted with himself about this and knows that any normal girl would have him arrested for little voyeurism hobby. Luckily for him this is no normal girl as she herself is a pervert who takes pictures of him through that very same gap between her curtains. I really like how this short but sweet series went. Rather than the odd but otherwise straight romance manga it seems to be, this series seems to be more about the weird little things that people do in their everyday lives making it a mainly slice of life series. I actually found myself relating to quite a few of the topics brought up in here. For example, in one scene the girl is shown to be a light drinker despite liking her liquor a lot and they compare her to someone who’s allergic to crabs but still eats them. I myself am allergic to white chocolate but my inability to resist treats containing it often leaves me with itchy eyes and a runny nose so it really struck a chord with me. This particular work of the author uses a style very reminiscent of Asano Inio’s. It’s set in a realistic tone showing the good and the bad of the many unique and colorful personalities portrayed in this manga, putting them in scenes that let them play off one another and build the one main plotline with lots of entertaining little plotbits. It’s certainly a work that needs be recommend to all seinen fans alike and doubly so for those who are avid fans of Asano Inio’s style. Like me, you’ll probably find a lot of those little things that’ll have you go “Yeah, what’s up with that?”. It won’t necessarily be quite the same as my relatibility to the lead’s gap fetish is more in the area of hiding in them and taking people by the surprise. Don’t worry though, in my case it’s just for laughs and I don’t do that for any reasons that Candlejack would and doe

Blackout Spoiler Installed

2011-01-29T23:18:00.007+08:00

This is a 4chan styled spoiler for my blog. Still haven't figured out how to get Madoka Runes to work like this but maybe I will in the future.

Hover over that blacked out text to see what it says. Thought it'd be good to have this in the future for my reviews and if I ever do figure out how to get the Madoka Runes spoiler text below to work on computers that don't have the necessary font installed I'll be switching over to that instead - unless of course I start liking having blacked out text on my blog and that's quite possible really. Go here to install the font to see what I mean if you don't.

If you can read this then either you don't have the font installed or you actually memorized the runes. You have my admiration if it is the latter.

Additionally these are the css coding I used to get this to work on my blog. If you want the same effects on yours just copy and paste them in before the '/head' tag in the template's html. For the even less html inclined, these are activated like normal spoiler tags only instead of using the "[]" brackets you need to use the "<>" brackets. Substitute the word 'spoiler' for 'madoka' when you want to use the 'madoka' spoiler.

madoka {
font-size:30px; font-family:"MadokaRunes";
}
madoka:hover {
font-family:"Times New Roman"
}

spoiler{
background-color:#000000;
color:#000000;
}
spoiler:hover {
color:#ffffff;
background-color:#000000;
}

Manga Review: Usagi Drop

2011-01-27T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Usagi Drop
Author: Unita Yumi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Josei, Slice of Life, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This series is the story of a 30 year old man and his newfound 6 year old aunt whom he takes into his care upon the death of his grandfather as her other relatives aren’t quite as welcoming as he is. The man’s grandfather recently died at the ripe old age of 79 and much to the surprise of his family, the old man still had it in him to knock up someone less than a third of his age, raise an illegitimate daughter for six years in complete secrecy without having leaving a single inkling in all that time for his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids to find. My immediate thoughts on this old man? You are one awesome old dude old timer! Well, in all seriousness to me this manga is a breath of fresh air that I managed to take in amongst all the other foul odors that I’ve run into lately. It’s funny, has a unique premise, incredibly likeable leads and many a moment that will catch you off your guard and inject warmth and happiness directly into your hearts. It really does scare me how good the author is at doing that, almost seems sinister in a way if you ask me. The story so far is split into two parts, the first holding a great deal of the best stuff during the first year of their life together and the second which takes place a decade later when that little girl is now a teen. While the second half still makes for a pretty good read, I do hope that the upcoming anime series only animates the first half since that was the part of the story that was, in my eye, absolutely exceptional as well as the main draw and point of the series. The second half wouldn’t work without the first half and frankly, I wasn’t anywhere near done with reading about their early days when the time skip came. The first four volumes alone are definitely worth reading as you’ll absolutely be compelled to read the ones after once you're done with them.

Video: Hatsune Miku, Virus Buster!!

2011-01-24T14:39:00.002+08:00

Take note that's not the actual title of the video I found today on nico nico douga and that the actual title would be something along the lines of "My PC's turned into something awesome but...". This nine minute short MMD film features Miku coming to life and stepping out the MMD programming window and onto the computer's cyberspace where the entire place soon gets overtaken by this kickass looking virus. Miku escapes and finds herself in a desolate infected part of the computer when all these anti-virus software come in around her and upgrade her to netnavi status ala the megaman battle network games. You can easily guess what follows as in the end the PC is restored back to normal and Miku steps back into the MMD program. An interesting piece of work and though the idea of having eight different brands of anti-virus installed in your computer is ridiculously redundant I must say I loved how Norton was portrayed in the video. I can't tell if that hero helmet clad office guy was the result of creative liberty or really the actual packaging for the software in Japan but I know I'd feel safe having that guy protecting my laptop.

【初音ミク短編映画】うちのPCがえらいことになってるんだが【MMD】

Madoka Tag Testing

2011-01-24T13:05:00.001+08:00

Dies text ist ein prüfend. MadokaRunes Schriftart benötigt für Einschaltung

Testing out Madoka Runes tag for the blog. If you see the above text in German then you need to install "Madoka Runes" font to see it properly.

Currently working out a way to change this to a blacked out piece of text when you don't have the font. If anyone's got a suggestion I'm open to suggestions.

[EDIT]Go to the following link figure out how to do the same for your site:LINK

Manga Review: Lying Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan: Precious Lies

2011-01-23T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Lying Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan: Precious Lies
Author: Iruma Hiruma, Satou Atsunori
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Mystery, Psychological, Seinen
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: Based on the first volume of a seemingly obscure series of light novels, this manga is the story of a boy and a girl who go by the names “Mii-kun” and “Maa-chan”. The two share the trauma of having been the victims of a kidnapping eight years prior and because of it, neither of them have all their screws in the right sockets. This is especially so for Maa-chan as she herself has kidnapped a pair of kids for no apparent reason. Between this and the serial murders that’s been taking place in their town, Mii-kun has his work cut out for him when it comes to resolving the problem Maa-chan’s gotten herself into. The author weaves a delightfully unique story with the fascinatingly screwed-up characters, unusual plot and his masterful use of implicit and explicit information. The misdirection of the mystery actually relies on the reader’s ability to put two and two together as the author uses unrelated implicit bits of information to make us fill in the gaps in the whole picture. I myself couldn’t help but be amazed at how brilliantly I got fooled by this since I only had my own assumptions to blame for being wrong. Sure, the presentation could be blamed for a few of the points(the killer’s identity comes to mind) in the story but I’m certain that the original novel was much better about it considering how many filters the version I read went through. It’s really a shame that they didn’t go on and adapt the other nine novels in the series cause there’s a good reason why the series has won a couple of awards.

Video: "Strobe Last" & "Crybaby Boyfriend"

2011-01-21T15:56:00.006+08:00

Found two great videos on the nico nico rankings at the 24th and 27th spots today and they're respectively called "Strobe Last" and "Crybaby Boyfriend". The first one is a brand new Miku song and features a strangely relaxing trance-like beat to it while the other one is a cover of a Miku & Len song about a crybaby breaking up with his girlfriend by Wotamin and TaMU that I somehow missed last month.

Hatsune Miku - Strobe Last
I've listened to this at least ten times now and every time I try to understand what the lyrics are saying I always get distracted by the melody. Lyrics shown in the video aren't helping me much either cause this song's got a semi-hypnotic effect on me. I'm certain that the one persistent tone in the song is responsible for that since it's synced to play once every second and my own internal clock, one that's been proven to be quite excellent, can't help but try to match it too. Fact is that if you're listening to this song it won't be for the lyrics, it'll be for the great rhythmic beat that's making you tap your finger, foot, etc.

Crybaby Boyfriend by Wotamin & TaMU
This duet features the story of a couple who break up with the girl comforting her crybaby of a boyfriend as he boyfriend tries not to cry like he usually does for their farewell. Wotamin's an amazing singer so her singing at all makes it a worth listening to but the TaMU did a pretty good job too. I find this to be the best of the three versions I've found with the nice balance the two of them have going during the song though I like lino's take on the girl's part of the song better than Wotamin's.

Original Version by Hatsune Miku & Kagamine Len

Another Cover by lino & MISAKI
P.s. It seems that Youtube embedding's gotten so popular that they shortened the embed code to a more simplistic one. Going to miss being able to choose the player color though.

Video: "Bad Apple", Reaper Style!

2011-01-18T15:04:00.003+08:00

Well it looks like the reaper strikes again with another one of his violin renditions and Bad Apple doesn't disappoint in the least. This video's actually been floating around up there in the higher half of the nico nico rankings for the past few days but I hadn't been able to find a youtube reprint of it till now. To be honest, I have no idea what this guy is called but his covers are easily identified by that signature reaper mask of his, the one he always wears in his vids. As per usual to his skill, it's a great cover of the original song albeit a little fast so take a listen to it.

Reaper Rendition

Original Version w/ subs

NIWANGO English Cover

Video: 【Hatsune Miku】 What's up? -どういうことなの！？

2011-01-14T17:05:00.003+08:00

An interesting new Miku MMD showed up at the top spot on today's nico nico rankings this morning and it features what I suspect to be Miku driven by the Kinect's motion capture, music engineered to stay stuck in your head and a whole lot of awesomely screwy animations inspired by both madness and the cyberspace scenes from the first digimon movie and Summer Wars. I say I suspect that the Kinect was used to work out the subtle gestures and movements our favorite virtual idol because you don't usually get such precise movements from MMD software alone. Even the Project Diva modules used motion capture to come up with the dances in the game. Seeing as how brilliantly the Kinect can be utilized outside of its initial gaming specs Microsoft might as well start selling them off as standalone commercial motion capture devices cause there's no telling what other incredibly entertaining purpose those crazy Japs might come up with. Now that I've shared my opinion on the Kinect, please do take some time to watch this amazing new MMD and appreciate its awesomeness. I highly suggest watching it in HD.

Hatsune Miku - What's Up?

Manga Review: Release: The Emancipation of the Self

2011-01-13T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Release: The Emancipation of the Self
Author: Sagara Naoya
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Sci-fi
Art: C
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: C

Impression: This is an odd series that I happened to find. It’s got the makings of something interesting but it’s very hard to discern the direction the series is taking. Emancipation of Personality features an amnesiac who was said to have been living in Tokyo for the past 5 years but is unable to recall any of it. The people in his life seem pretty normal making this seem like a story of an ordinary amnesiac living in modern times who has some dark hidden depths but then he has people coming after him who kidnap and bring the guy 70 years in the future where he actually comes from. I figured it’d be more of a psychological series based on the title and it turns out it’s a sci-fi of some ex-assassin who just wants to go back to the home he’s known as far as he remembers it. I feel like the author has a particular plot in mind but threw in some unnecessary elements that just didn’t come out right in ink and paper. First volume in and three more after, I just couldn’t come to grips with how the main character was important enough to drive the plot and as such I diagnose this series with a case of messy writing and lack of a properly done setting. I would have preferred to read more about his present life than what he did before that since the sci-fi bits just aren’t very well thought out.

Supercell Stowaways Tribute Album

2011-01-09T21:23:00.004+08:00

Not too long ago a bunch of different vocaloid composers decided to make a tribute to Supercell's original debut album and make one of their own based on it and individually remix all the original songs with their own touches. That tribute album was released at Comiket 79 around two weeks ago and these are those remixes. They're all nicely done and a few have actually outdone the original versions.

Love is War by マチゲリータ.

This was already an awesome song and this remix made it even more so. This version sounded even more like declaration of war than the original did. I actually felt the urge to rise up and kick ass in the last quarter of the song when those incredible guitar rifts kicked in. This could really go well if someone used in a MAD.

Heartbreaker by 梨本うい

Certainly an improvement over the original but not by much.

Melt by cosMo (暴走P).

This one was really interesting and not just because of how much cheerier and girlier it sounded. At first I thought he used Len to replace Miku in the song using the original lyrics which were meant to be sung by a girl but turns out it was Luka. Given how some composers make him crossdress in some PVs it really made me wonder to myself why no one's done it yet given the rise of the trap trend in Japan. That seriously would make for an interesting PV and I suspect that if someone actually were to make it Kaito would probably be in for a big surprise at the end of it.

Black Rock Shooter by minato(流星P)

For most parts it sounded about the same but some of it sounded grander than the original.

Kurukuru Mark no Sugoi Yatsu by ゆよゆっべ

I don't think I've ever heard the original version but this is a nice rock song.

Line by ジミーサムP

It's okay. Didn't particularly care for the original version either.

World is Mine by Dixie Flatline

Easily the best remix of the album! The extended prologue and all the other additions to the song really made Miku sound even more like a Diva here. The original version made her sound like a spoiled girl used to getting her way but this one made her sound like a princess who's being coy with you about what she wants and knows it. I'd love to see how this version would do with a PV.

When Love Ends for the First Time by doriko

This version's nice and all but it makes it sound like Miku's fondly reminiscing about her first break up which is kinda weird.

Liar's Parade by 小林オニキス

This is much mellower than the original's rocking version but I quite like both of them.

Sono Ichibyou no Slow Motion by KNOTS

The original was much more upbeat than this version so while this one's good I like the original version better.

Hinekuremono by トラボルタ

I remember this being a bit of drag while I played it on Project Diva. This version reminds me of a rather moving arrangement Saihate that fit the lyrics better.

Matane by ichi (BaguettesEnsemble)

Rather than a remix of the original Matane this was more like a completely new medley since the original version was only a 42 second farewell to the listener. Didn't really care for this so called "remix".

Video: "Chiisaki Mono" by ENE

2011-01-08T13:26:00.004+08:00

Do you remember the sixth Pokemon movie Jirachi Wish Maker from all those years ago? I barely do since all I can remember is the horribly paced plot and story for that particular movie and that I didn't stick around for the credits. Today however, I discovered that I probably should have at least stuck around for the credits cause the song at the end was quite probably the high point of the entire film as I came across this cover of the song by ENE on the Nico Nico rankings at 40th place:

This really should have been in the top ten of the day.

After taking a listen to that blissfully angelic rendition of the song I searched around for the original versions of the songs and it turns out they were pretty good too, beautiful even. I can see why that's the first time the localizers decided to keep it in the English version of the movie. They even had the singer they hired to sing it in both English and Japanese for some reason. I do prefer ENE's cover by far because her voice makes it a lot more soothing. I would highly suggest that you take a listen to all three songs and find out just how amazing they are.

Original Japanese Version by Asuca Hayashi

English & Japanese Version by Cindy Mizelle.

Manga Review: Doubt

2011-01-07T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Doubt
Author: Tonogai Yoshiki
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Mystery, Horror, Psychological
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: D
Characters: C
Humor: C
Action: B

Impression: What do you get when you cross the Saw franchise and some paper and ink? Saw, the manga! That’s the easiest way you can describe this and I’m sticking to that. There are a number of slight differences though: 1)The victims are stuck in the same building that the schemer is and they have to figure out who it is 2)There aren’t really any of the cool murder devices like in the movies. 3)The schemer is NOT an old man in a wheelchair talking through a creepy puppet. I had high hopes for this series when I accidentally read who the mastermind was on TvTropes but when I actually got around to reading this I found that the plot falls flat on the premise. The mystery aspect of the series was poorly handled and depended on everything going right and all the victims being complete idiots. If anyone had bothered to think things through or done one thing different then no one would have died. In fact, the one person you’d expect to actually do something right stupidly ends up HELPING the mastermind’s plan succeed! The scope that the series covered was quite underwhelming given the elements that were there by the end and I would rather read more about the mastermind than the so called “mystery” that the manga provided. Seriously, the true identity of the mastermind alone was at least ten times more interesting than the actual plot and I would have enjoyed a series from their point of view.

Movie Review: Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer

2011-01-04T22:02:00.009+08:00

For my first post of 2011 I’ve decided to go with a review of the Gundam 00 movie and thankfully enough it turned out to be as good as I had hoped it would be. Contrary to what a lot of people are saying the movie didn’t disappoint me in the least and all those complaints I’ve heard about it we completely blown out of proportion. Well, maybe not the whole 00 Qan[T] only having five minutes of screen time but I didn’t mind that in the least.

This was a pretty creepy scene.

The movie is the final act of the Gundam 00 where humanity finally makes first contact an unknown extraterrestrial lifeform from god knows where and the impending threat that their approach to Earth brings. With the Earth currently going through an era of peace under the new ESF administration Celestial Being has been keeping a low profile on their activities but this alien threat forces them out of hiding as Innovators with Quantum Brainwaves like Setsuna are the targets of this new menace. The threat proves to be far greater than they had imagined and Setsuna becomes the key to resolving this entire mess.

Raphael was the least impressive of the new machines and this was impressive.

These Braves are definitely on par with the 4th generation Gundams.

Wallpaper sized yo! Click it! ~~Trans~~Graham's Brave was awesome!

I personally feel that the movie was very well done and ended the series perfectly. Although the plot is pretty straightforward and simple I thought it served as a perfect conclusion for the entire Gundam 00 franchise. Not only did it tie up all the loose ends and bring back all the remaining characters for a grand finale, it also made good on its themes of understanding and conflict and finally showed us what Aeolia Schenberg intended for. With the exception of the very final scene which could have been handled better, the direction of the movie was superb and kept to a great pace that just made the movie feel a little too short at the end. I suspect there’s probably a director’s cut or the like in the works because I sincerely doubt that being exactly two hours long was a decision made by the production staff and not the executives. You have scenes where the ELS activities were genuinely unnerving and you can just feel the tension and intensity at times when the movie demanded your attention. Don’t think it was a completely serious affair though as they slipped in a few jokes here and there to keep the mood from going too sour. My favorite ones were where Billy told his all too enthusiastic lover to be gentle with him and the fact that Setsuna actually chuckled at Ian’s outrage at Mileina’s confession. Patrick even delivered a good one in the middle of the climax that had me partly relieved.

Sunrise should probably try that Gainax parody style on the next Gundam series.

Setsuna is actually smiling in this pic! Seriously!

I'm really liking this meme. So very much applicability.

The animation of course was top notch and made for insane levels of action in the final confrontation with so, so many things going on at once. You really have to be amazed at all the technical details they put in and the sheer brilliance behind the alien ELS. Their being living metal that operated on a hive mind and their modus operandi at understanding things made them absolutely perfect for their role as it showed just how easy it is for things to go very wrong when you don’t understand a thing about the opposite party. It gets bonus points from me for being a threat that was part alien part nanotech part robot and part legion.

Harute's scissor bits cut an ELS GN-X into 16 pieces like giant metal scissor piranha hybrids.

Wave motion cannon prep in Marute mode.

All hail to the new king of beam spam, Zabanya!!

See all those pink beams? God-tier beam spamming Zabanya!!

14 rifle bits, 4 shield bits, one arm armed with a rifle and a fuck load of missiles.

I’ve actually watched this movie twice now(and will probably watch it again at some point), before and after BSS released their subs and found that the only difference between the viewings were some small details that I missed out on the first time along with some small jokes that weren’t entirely due to the movie(~~trans~~graham. Lol. Very cheeky BSS.). That having been said, the movie is actually quite simplistic and quite easy to understand which is why I find it odd that there are people calling it a failure simply because the Qan[T] didn’t get to showcase all of its power. That obviously would have conflicted a lot with Setsuna’s character and the movie’s themes and I’d have been very disappointed if that’s all the movie amounted to. At any rate, they’d complain anyway about the hax and Setsuna being the new Jesus in Gundam even if the Qan[T] did take down the ELS like the director said it could. Anyone who actually applies to that mindset about the movie has clearly been taken in by the all too effective marketing that Bandai is notorious for.

Regular Trans-am, Buster Rifle Mode, charging... 7... 6...

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... FIRE!!

The sheer scale is just ridiculous.

There is no doubt that he really could have taken them ALL on. The ELS and the Humans.

Quantum Burst. More impressive than I thought it would be.

Keep in mind that Quantum Burst uses way more GN Particles than regular Trans-am.

Assuming that's the meter for his GN particle reserves on the right then the Hax is uber strong in this one.

To be honest, I actually had an embarrassingly difficult time writing this review thanks to all the little things I loved about it. There was so, so, so much I liked in there that it was very hard to fit it all in this review and it's gone past the thousand word mark already. It even has me posting up the most screenshots of I've ever put up for a review. Everyone had their moment in the spotlight to shine and shine spectacularly they did. The movie wrapped things up quite nicely and I honestly can’t see how they could continue the 00 universe from here. I mean they actually could but it’s going to be tricky feat considering how the story and cast are pretty much settled with the movie. Hopefully they’ll just leave the story at this and not try to follow it up with a sequel ala SEED Destiny cause the series is pretty much complete with this. Well that’s it for my review on the movie and let’s pray that the new Gundam series they’ve got lined up for us is something completely different cause now’s a very good time for something different. I could really go for something like nanomachine based technology with a female A.I. as the protagonist piloting a constantly adapting Gundam that’s the center of a new conflict. Just throwing the idea out there.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved through understanding.

The End of 2010

2010-12-31T20:10:00.003+08:00

Well 2010 is now coming to an end and 2011 is knocking at our doorsteps so it's time for my year end of post. Time sure flew by quick this year but I suspect that has more to do with biological conditioning more than anything else. Oh well, let's start off with the usual list:

Top 10 Anime of 2010

1) Katanagatari
2) Durarara!!
3) Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
4) Angel Beats!
5) Shiki
6) Shinryaku! Ikamusume
7) Kobato
8) Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
9) Star Driver
10) Super Robot Wars: The Inspector

There were some pretty good shows this year though not as quite as many grabbed my attention like last year. There were plenty of good OVAs and movies that came out this year to make up for that but I'd rather have more interesting shows in the season line-ups instead of the all too many harem and fanservice shows this year. Though I do disagree with the controversial bill 156 that'll take effect halfway next year, I do hope that this will get the studios to stop producing crap like Ladies vs Butlers and Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou. I hope to see some more plot oriented series next years and that Kyoto Animation finally stops wasting their talents on stuff like K-On!!. I'm a fan of the manga and it's humor but I really feel that they screwed up with the anime cause they stretch it out as much as they could taking out all the funny so they could trick moe-addicted saps into worshipping fictional characters doing everyday stuff in dull and melodramatic ways. That's what I have to say about that matter so let's move onto the "Best of the Year" bits.

Best Animated Movie - Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance

It's was a pretty close one here between this and the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi but let's face it, Eva 2.22 was so much more awesome. Disappearance had the best animation work of the year and had lots of good scenes but Eva 2.22 had amazing mecha battles with awesome moments that just keep topping the one before it.

Best OVA - Darker Than Black Gaiden

With four episodes to it and a lot of great moments that explained plenty of things from the first and second seasons it’s a real no brainer here.

Best Animation - The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi

Is it unfair to give this one to a movie when it obviously has the budget to win? No, not when Disappearance not only blew everything else from this year out of the water but everything else from the years before it. Kyoto Animation put in a LOT of work into this one and it really, really shows.

Best Anime Soundtrack - Katanagatari

This one was very hard to choose from with all the amazing soundtracks from this year. Besides Iwasaki Taku's powerful and occasionally quirky feudal themed compositions there were also Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt's awesome techno beats and Black Rock Shooter's amazing tracks. Katanagatari had some of the man's best works with songs like "Gettouka" and "Bahasa Palus" in just the first OST album. There were quite a few other tracks that I loved that weren't in the first one while the other two already had theirs fully bared. Mind you though, this only applies to the anime cause Murray Gold's magical work for series 5 of Doctor Who is nothing short of spectacular and easily triumphs over them all.

Best Song - "God Only Knows"

Eight minutes long, composed of several chapters and sung in an epic hymn-esque fashion to usher in the Capturing God himself, "God Only Knows" is the clear winner of the year. The anime was a bit of a disappointment but this song was just so goddamned amazing. Honorable mentions go to "Gettouka" and "Bahasa Palus" of Katanagatari, Supercell's "Hero" as well as "I am the Doctor", "Amy in the TARDIS" and pretty much the rest of series 5's albums.

Best Character - Ika Musume

Ika-musume wins this year hands down. Shichika saw some of the best character development this year but nothing can beat the invader from the sea. I totally called it when I said that Ika-musume would make a great mascot when I reviewed her manga series.

Best Comedy - Seitokai no Yakuindomo

Well this might be a bit odd considering I put up Shinryaku Musume up on my top ten but not this but watching a bunch of perverted girls crack innuendos and dirty jokes was both absolutely hilarious and incredibly refreshing to watch. If you must know where exactly I place this series on my rankings this year I'd say at 12th, just behind Kuragehime and after Hanamaru Kindergarten. Speaking of Hanamaru Kindergarten...

Most Memorable Scene - Hanamaru Kindergarten, The Panda Neko Taisou

I will probably never forget this dance for the rest of my life. If I ever have a daughter I swear to God that I'm getting her a Panda Neko costume just like Hiiragi's and have her do this dance!

Biggest Disappointment - Iron Man

Remember when I said The World God Only Knows was a bit of a disappointment? Well, the Iron Man anime was a complete and utter failure. The trailers made it look like the awesome shit that the movies wished they could be but then Madhouse turned it into the shit regular shit shits. I really wonder what went wrong during development that made it that way. On a slightly related note, the missing battle between Sabi Hakuhei and Yasuri Shichika.

And to wrap up my last post for the year, here's a list of things to look forward to in 2011:

Doctor Who Series 6
Sherlock Series 2
The Fate/Zero Anime
The Stein’s;Gate Anime
The Nintendo 3DS
The English Versions of Pokemon Black & White
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part II

Movie Review: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st

2010-12-30T20:21:00.003+08:00

Finally got around to watching the Nanoha 1st movie that’s been hiding around somewhere amongst the other things I’ve got to get around to watching and I have to say I didn’t feel like I wasted two hours and ten minutes on this remake. I considered the first season of the Nanoha series to be its weakest but this retelling has me putting it on par with the second. By that I mean I thought the movie was pretty big improvement from the first season much like A’s was.

The movie recaps the events of the first season and chronicles the very beginning of Takamachi Nanoha’s life as a magical girl and her relationship with Fate Testarossa. Some sources like this one say that the movie itself is not only an alternate retelling but also exists in the franchise’s universe as well as a semi-biographical “based on a true story” movie, one that apparently that had consultation from the main characters as well so any changes anyone feels they’d like to complain about should voice them out to the in-universe production staff as well as Nanoha and Fate themselves but I think they’d find that the metaphorical meta wall is going to make that very difficult.

This actually is official promo art.

So what are these changes they made to the movie exactly and what do I think of them? The biggest one much to amusement is the fact that they downplayed Yuuno’s importance in the movie. Even after Nanoha found out that Yuuno was actually a boy and not a ferret she still let him sleep in the same room with her as a ferret and we get no mention of what happens to him after the incident is over. He basically demoted from an actual person to a magical pet. Make that of what you will but I’m taking that as further proof that Nanoha and Fate are two loving mamas happily raising their daughter with little to nil involvement from Yuuno. They obviously had a reason to increase the subtext behind their first meeting cause I definitely don’t remember Fate saying Nanoha’s name over and over again with increasing joy or their farewell hug being quite so intimate and long. You’d have to be blind not to see it by that point cause well… You know what, let me just show you:

I present the evidence right here

Ahem! Well, my yuri fanboy tendencies aside they really did make quite a number a good changes to the movie. They cut out pretty much every bit of padding the first season had and replaced it with much better flowing scenes and great new action sequences and added in new scenes to show Nanoha’s development better as well as more backstory on Precia and Fate that really made the story even more tragic than it was before. The animation’s obviously improved by leaps and bounds compared to the original series but it’s not quite at the standard you’d come to expect from anime movies nowadays but more like a high quality OVA. That however does not apply to the battle scenes which are as I have said before are quite good. My favorite one was where Nanoha shot out a Starlight Breaker at Fate and leveled an entire city in the process proving that nine year old girls are a force to be reckoned with and possibly feared, especially with magical girls like Nanoha. There are many reasons why Nanoha is often compared to a Gundam and that right there is one of them – not very many Gundams are capable of demolishing an entire city in one blast. I think she probably still had it on stun too when she shot that cause there’s no way Fate could have survived it otherwise.

Just imagine what she really could do with this

All in all it was pretty good remake of the original season. They really improved on a lot with this one. Music, animation, emotional depth, logistics – everything really. They even paced the whole thing nicely enough that you’ll feel that two hours and ten minutes was just right for the movie. While I’d like to see a fourth season animated with the quality they put into the movie I’m pleased to know that the 2nd movie, the remake of the second season, is already in the works and is set to premiere in 2012. I’m really looking forward to that one since A’s was the best season of the series and am hoping that they somehow improve Nanoha’s Divine Buster sniping scene since that was the best part of the series. Here’s to even better Nanoha movies. Let’s hope that the Mayans aren’t right and we’ll get to live long enough to see the StrikerS remake.

My favorite frame of the movie

Movie Review: The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi

2010-12-29T19:10:00.001+08:00

The long awaited animated movie adaptation of the fan favorite fourth installation in the Suzumiya Haruhi light novel series finally went on sale around two weeks ago and I am very pleased to say that Kyoto Animation pulled it off perfectly. It’s been years since I last read that particular novel but it’s still as clear to me in my memory now as when I had first read it which really is a testament as to how brilliant that book was. Having declared that I can honestly say with the utmost confidence that it is most faithful movie adaptation of any novel that I’ve ever seen.

The movie runs 2 hours and 43 minutes long and revolves around Kyon who suddenly woke up one day that the world around him had changed overnight as he slept. He doesn’t realize this at first but he slowly comes to this shocking revelation that all the odd discrepancies between his and everyone else’s memories culminating with the impossible return of his attempted murderer Asakura Ryouko in place of the ever troublesome brigade chief he’s come to know in the past few months of his life. Coming to grasp this world so similar to his and yet so significantly different to the one he has known all this time he must discover the truth behind the events that put him in this situation and find a way to fix things so that they go back to the way it was.

I don’t mean to come off as fanboy of the series with what I’m about to say about the movie but this is in my opinion one of the very best things that anime has to offer. The animation work seen in this movie is its biggest plus and deserves absolute praise as they just piled detail upon detail upon detail here. Every character named and unnamed feel like unique individuals while the scenery can be just so mindbogglingly breathtaking that you have to wonder just how much work they put into all of it. The audio that went with the visuals was also made use of superbly and conveyed the ambience and tone of the movie perfectly. We’d get quiet sombre melodies when we were meant to feel Kyon’s anguish and alienation in the world while uplifting, hopeful tunes when he’d find some form of a clue out of his predicament. Subtlety was clearly the key to making this as good as it is. They went as far as to show very small things like Yuki stroking a teapot to show just how timid she is in the new world and even put in sounds like the flapping of arms and the low humming of lights, sounds that we’d just ignore and tune out. KyoAni did far more than go the extra mile with this one, they ran a whole marathon just for the heck of it.

Kyon's defining moment

Though the movie is called the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, she doesn’t really do much in the story and most of the focus goes to Kyon and Yuki. Disappearance is there to show just how much the two of have changed and what their roles in the messes that Haruhi brings them into means to them. When you think about it, there really isn’t much plot and is pretty much secondary to the characterisation but that more than makes up for it. You’re probably not even going to realize that with how great the scenes are. My favorite parts were when they played Asakura showing up in class like a horror scene, Kyon’s expanded inner conflict scene and also when Asakura showed up at the end to “protect” Yuki. Asakura showing up was just as good as the novel made it out to be but they really outdid themselves with Kyon’s inner conflict with whole symbolic way they went about it when it was just a bunch of lines in the book. As for Asakura’s protection, I just loved how psychotic she was while giving Kyon that pleased smile of hers.

Asakura the Happy Knife Wielding Psycho. My favorite character of the series.

I do have to point out that they did exaggerate some of Kyon’s reactions, particularly his outburst at Asakura but I think that just made the later scenes even more powerful, especially so for the self-confrontation scene. The movie can also seem a little draggy in the beginning but I suppose that was intended as bit of a refresher for fans since even Kyon lampshades the fact that it was a very long prologue. The rest of the movie though is quite enjoyable though so you’re probably not going to feel the length till maybe the end with Koizumi but that’ll wear off when you get to Yuki.

When I read the original novel I thought that Tanigawa Nagaru painted an amazing picture with his words but what I saw in its movie was an even grander one that surpassed. It really did make up for the whole Endless Eight troll they pulled on us in the second season and it was most certainly worth the wait. You might even want to watch it twice if you don’t mind the sitting down again for it for another few hours. Even if you don’t want to make just make sure wait till after the credits are done cause there’s an extra scene they threw in as fanservice for Yuki fans. Another really nice touch that wasn’t in the book.

This wasn't it but I thought it deserved to be shared

Movie Review: Gulliver’s Travels

2010-12-28T20:05:00.000+08:00

Went to watch this with some of my friends some time ago when I was actually hoping to catch Warrior’s Way at the cinema that day. Unfortunately, maybe, they stopped showing it that day so we were left to choose a different movie to spend a couple hours on and our fallback movie, Tangled, wasn’t available. That left us with either this or Tron Legacy to watch and I really didn’t want to have to sit through that again so we opted for this. Frankly I’ve never liked any of Jack Black’s roles in the movies I’ve seen him in and this one just cemented my opinion of him – a noisy living indication for what movies I should stay away from. I really hated Nacho Libre by the way.

Jack Black’s latest offering to the ever increasing pile of crap they churn out over in Hollywood is just as you would imagine it to be, a story about a man-child set in the classic tale of the giant who finds himself in the classic tale’s island of Liliput where very, very, very tiny people live in a pre-tv age and view him as a giant beast. In this take of big man on tiny people island, Jack Black’s character is a guy who’s life is going nowhere and tries to impress the girl he’s taken a fancy to for the past five years by taking up a travel writing assignment despite having little to no experience with either of the necessary components of that task. He ends up going to the Bermuda Triangle where he gets caught up in this strange magical waterspout that has him washing up on the shores of Liliput and in a situation I suppose you could call an adventure.

I should start off with the biggest problem I had with the movie – either nobody on the writing team cared enough to write a good story or they hired a bunch of kids to the job. You can tell that they really aren’t bothering to use the other characters for anything and give them lines like “We are kidnapping you!”, “Oh! I am being kidnapped!” and my personal favorite, “She has been kidnapped!”. Whatever the case may be it seems that they tailored the whole thing to Jack Black and the type of acting he’s been pigeonholed into all this time and that was something I had hoped that the movie would avoid. I would have commended them for not throwing a single fart joke in there but they just had to replace it with showing a giant ass and moon us. Did I mention that at one point he had to piss floods of nasty brown liquid on a burning palace and save it? I can never unsee them and my memory continues to refuse utter and complete erasure from my brain banks.

Now let me share my thoughts on what they could have done to make the movie better – focus on the secondary characters. Though Gulliver was the eponymous main character of the movie I found that I wanted to see more of the other characters than him. I was actually cheering for the antagonist played by Chris O’Dowd, Roy of IT Crowd, who was an absolute delight to watch. I didn’t recognize him while I was watching movie but I certainly did like his take of the only sane man in Liliput. Besides that brilliant Irish funny man there was also Marshall of How I Met Your Mother fame. Both these men have shown just how much funnier they are than Jack Black in their respective shows and played their roles as best as the script would let them so I simply cannot not lament on how much better the movie could have been if they had been given more attention. The romantic subplot was just tacked onto the ridiculously predictable and unappealing main plotline and could have been explored better by having General Edward and Horatio square off against each other at some point. I mean seriously, who was actually expecting anything good out of Gulliver? Definitely not me.

In order to truly enjoy this movie I believe you’ll require two things: 1) The company of others to snark with and B) The ability to turn off your brain. I had the former but the latter would not come to me since I didn’t sneak an ice cold slushie or the like with me to give myself brainfreeze with that day. I don’t consider this a movie worth sitting down for an hour and a half at the cinema so I would suggest you don’t bother with this one unless you have elements 1 and B. If I had gone without either of these then I’d assume the people sitting next to me might mistake my ever frequent cringing for a seizure.

Video: Shinryaku Shinryaku Shinryaku and a Santa

2010-12-27T13:34:00.004+08:00

Found this MAD someone made up on the second place of the Nico Nico rankings and it's got the cast of Shinryaku Ika-Musume parodying the original opening song of Darker than Black along with a trailer for DtB's second season and a mock-up of what I assume was the title menu of its DVDs. I was honestly surprised at how many usable scenes Ika-musume had for this video and was highly amused by how well they fit the music. Fans of both series simply have to check this out cause it's of LMAO quality and just shows how great the production was for Shinryaku Ika-Musume.

Darker than Ikack - The White Invader

There was also this video someone made for Christmas not too far down from the MAD on the rankings and it features a rags to riches toymaker and the nun that's always been there for him. Love the art style and the short and sweet story it told so do yourself a favor and enjoy this vid as well.

Incidentally, this year's Doctor Who Christmas special went pretty much the same way. A pretty good take on the whole Christmas Carol plot.

Movie Review: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part I

2010-12-18T16:32:00.001+08:00

So the movies are finally at the final stage of the series and the producers have deemed it necessary to split up the doorstop of a finale into two parts. Though that idea may seem a bit odd to fans who are not readers of the novels(They DO exist. I am related to some sadly), the adaptation of the seventh book really benefited a lot from this decision. I only deem the first two movies to be good adaptations of the novels and thought the two after were terribly off the mark. I didn’t even try to watch the fifth and sixth movies knowing their difficult length and literary density couldn’t be properly adapted even with 3 hours of time. That having been said, I am quite pleased to add the first part of finale to the list of movie adaptations I am satisfied with.

Usually I go through the synopsis of the movie or make some vague, relevant and hopefully witty snarking at its ridiculousness but I really shouldn’t have to bother with it this time. Anyone who actually requires me to recap what’s going on in this movie should go crawl back into the cave they live in and smash the final Harry Potter novel they have yet to read. Seriously, if you have to ask then this movie just isn’t for you.

Now for me to heap praises unto this movie and ignore whatever tiny insignificant scrap of dissatisfaction I may or may not have had about the movie. That’s not because I’m a fanboy of the series but rather because my memory tends to be very faulty when I try recalling those tiny, insignificant scraps of dissatisfaction are. Big ones are easy, small ones are not and my review happens to be based on its score as an adaptation rather a standalone movie so it is quite skewed here. Essentially, I consider to be a very well done adaptation that stripped down the story of its superfluous details and scenes and focused on the experiences that the trio go through. I personally didn’t mind that they left out Lupin’s visit to the Black house or that the new minister wasn’t as badass as he was in the books since spending precious time on secondary characters would only waste it. They also expanded certain scenes and moved them around in ways that actually helped keep the movie from dragging along as well as build up the first part as a prologue to the much more exciting latter half of the finale.

My favorite part of the movie was the whole animated segment with The Three Brothers tale since they changed from a lackluster bit of exposition by some guy to an enchantingly illustrated fairy tale that they threw at the end to set up the plot central magic artifacts of the finale. Put this together with the final scene of Voldemort finding the Elder Wand and shooting a pillar of lightning into the sky at the end and you have a very good cliffhanger to end on. I also liked that dance scene between Harry and Hermione they put in since it was perfect for conveying just how much the events of the movie have affected them in spite the fact that it was never in the book. I found it to be a very nice touch on the director’s part and has me looking forward to part two even more because of it. The fact that it seemed to be a jab directed at the HarryxHermione shippers also helped me appreciate the scene even more considering how oblivious you’d have to be to miss the obvious intention the author had with their relationship.

All in all it was very faithful and very well executed adaptation of the finale’s first part. No major flaws for fans like myself to shake their heads or fists at and very understandable changes that just made the movie experience stronger. I could scarcely believe how it stacks up in terms of ratings on rotten tomatoes but my guess is that a sizeable portion of the reviewers aren’t readers of the novels. Maybe it does seem weaker in comparison as a standalone movie but as an adaptation of what will no doubt be a classic for generations to come, it is exactly what I have been waiting for.

Movie Review: Tron Legacy

2010-12-17T15:40:00.003+08:00

I have never watched the original Tron and frankly I’ve never been interested in the story so I figured this would be one of the movies I’d pass on and wait till it shows up on HBO next year. Unfortunately, my cousin talked me into it so I went anyway and surprise, surprise – I didn’t like it. Oh, and it was in 3D too so you can imagine my displeasure as I stumbled out of the cinema. I’m really starting to hate those damn glasses.

Anyways, Tron Legacy is the official sequel to the original cult classic of 30 years ago featuring cyber-people in the cyberspace of a game. I’ve read about the original movie’s plot and just the summary alone makes it out to be a more interesting story than that of its sequel. Legacy features the son of the original’s protagonist who has had to grow up without his father after he disappeared one night with even a clue of what might have happened to him only for a disconnected phone number of his to dial up a pager in the hands of his friend more than a decade later. The younger Flynn then discovers the world his father has been trapped inside of all these years and just why exactly he’s never ever been able to return. Now in the same predicament, he tries to get him and his father out of the Grid before the portal back to the real world closes.

While I was watching the movie, I just kept seeing ways where the plot could be more interesting and it bugs me that they decided to keep the story as plain as possible. I facepalmed when the absolutely FABULOUS Castor didn’t even bother try to take things into his own hands and mix things up after he got his hands on disc the big bad was after. That was a really huge waste of potential plot especially since they brought up the fact that there was a resistance in the Grid and with how bland Clu was as the main villain. That scene in the club looked like a great turning point for the story especially when the older Flynn came in showing off his cyberspace manipulation skills. Easily the best scene in the movie but they go and keep things so predictably dull that I took my time getting back from my toilet break.

Okay, aside from the lackluster plot there were also some very clumsy scenes, lines and characterization thrown in the movie. Sure the action scenes were pretty nice but the barely there at all 3D ruined it for me and I would have much preferred to see them make more panoramic takes of the Grid and have most of the action take place in the streets and towers instead of that aerial battle high up in the dark. What happened to that scene where a lightcycle fell from the top of a tower and rode down the sides of the walls? That may have been something from the game though but that was what I wanted to see, not a dogfight in the very foggy airs of cyberspace.

Basically it was one of those misguided attempts at 3D with plot that failed on both accounts. I was bored for a major portion of the movie and almost fell asleep at points. The sushi I snuck in helped keep me awake but that’s mainly because it’s hard to pick out which rolls you want to eat in the dark. My recommendation for this movie is just to pass it over for something more entertaining. I mean two straight hours of thinking “And this will happen, just like it always does” is clearly not worth the ticket fare, especially not the 3D ticket fare.

I’ve got another review set up for tomorrow. It’s a little late but I finally went to watch Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 at the cinema the day before I watched Tron Legacy. Glad I did too because the Mall Cineplex just opened up four new theatres. Though they might be smaller, they have very comfy chairs. And I cannot stress it too much when I say very comfy chairs. They even recline a bit and the ticket only cost half of Tron Legacy’s. I have to catch more movies in those new theatres.

Omegle Trolling 1

2010-12-07T23:06:00.003+08:00

Feeling a bit of burn out from translating so I decided to go troll people on Omegle. I've come up with quite a good number of interesting chats with random people through there and have convinced so many people of things so ridiculous that they just can't be real. Let me share with you the five I came up with today.

Dying Agent

Murder Confession

How do I do this?

ginpyt esreveR

How to lose an omegler in two words

I would have tried to make some more interesting ones but I kept getting delayed messages and server disconnection messages for some reason. I did have this one chat with a korean schoolgirl as a rather ridiculous character who dealt with porno-loving catholics but she took me seriously and I ended up with a serious chat that just would be just sad to show. Sigh~

Video: Calc. Piano Version by Wotamin

2010-12-05T09:28:00.001+08:00

Song lyrics can be found here

Wotamin came up with yet another wonderful dub of a vocaloid song and I have to say I prefer her version over the original one which I quite liked as well. The original version's is quite a bit more upbeat than this one but it turns out the song works better with the slower pace. I'm betting the fact that the song is about a failed love had something to do with it. Also, I didn't notice it with the original or the Nico Nico Chorus versions but the piano arrangement made me realize that the has a composition style that's somewhat similar to Supercell's stuff, particularly that of "Kimi no Shiranaimonogatari". It's not quite that noticeable with the regular versions especially since Supercell's style is much livelier but take the piano versions and compare them and you'll see what I mean. And for those not willing to go to all that just exactly what do I mean? Simple, if you like Supercell's stuff you're going to like this.

Original Version

Nico Nico Chorus Version

Video: Matryoshka Gintama Style - Parfait-Mayoryoshka

2010-12-04T22:10:00.003+08:00

I swear they did something like this before in the manga only without singing.

This latest take on the ever popular Matryoshka originally sung by Miku and Gumi has me busting my gut, my sides and the general area around my abdomen with laughter. It seems that someone had the brilliant idea of making a Gintama parody of the song with Gin-san and Hijikata-san singing off with one another about their favorite things to eat. I'd say food but I personally don't believe that Hijikata-san's beloved mayonnaise should even be categorized as an edible substance. Yuck. Anyways, this video certainly deserves the top ranking it snagged on today's nico nico douga rankings with the awesome animation any voice work by the singers. I never watched the Gintama anime so I have no idea if that sounds anything Hijikata-san's seiyuu but I do know that Gin-san's voice in this video sounds just like his official seiyuu, Tomokazu Sugita. Gintama fans should do themselves a favor and watch this bit of genius.

Original Version

Movie Review: Tangled

2010-12-03T22:46:00.000+08:00

I recently went to the cinema to see the latest Disney movie with my siblings. I honestly didn’t have very high expectations even with the inclusion of Chuck’s Zachary Levi among the cast. The fact that the screenwriter of Bolt and much to my surprise, Fred Claus…ugh, was behind the writing really didn’t help either. At most I expected something along the lines of “Chuck: The Fairy Tale Version” to fill up the run time of the movie. To my pleasant surprise that’s exactly what I got plus a little more. To my unpleasant surprise, they only had 3D tickets available.

The movie is Disney’s take on the Rapunzel fairy tale making this another one of Disney’s princess movies so it’s basically guy saves girl from evil thing as they grow from their experiences together and fall in love with one another. It’s been a while since I watched one of those but I knew what to expect of the ending. Personally I didn’t mind it so much with this movie but the scenes at the end just didn’t strike a chord with me. I get that it was made to be a family movie but I feel that they could’ve gone in another direction with what they set up on the way to the ending.

Like I said before, this is basically “Chuck: The Fairy Tale Version” and as such you should expect brilliantly witty humor, great characters and an enjoyable if predictable plot. The only difference is that instead of the sharp and formidable Sarah you get the naive, wide-eyed and absolutely adorable Rapunzel. That and Casey’s a horse. Seriously, that is the most badass cg animal I’ve ever seen and I suspect it might even have the same rank as Casey or at the very least its medieval equivalent. “Chuck” puts on a braver face in this movie and snarks a little more frequently but it’s still basically Chuck and we still get some hilarious reactions from the guy. My favourite line is one of his and it’s given while he’s in a swordfight with !HorseCasey wielding a frying pan, “I have to tell you this is the strangest thing I have ever done!”. As for the adorable Rapunzel you should know that she’s got a “Moe” trope listed for her on the movie’s TvTropes page and it is well deserved considering the antics she gets up to in the movie. I really wouldn’t be surprised if I run into a doujinshi of the movie sometime in the future. All these great materials might actually spawn a decent sequel but given Disney’s tendency to drop the ball when it comes to them I wouldn’t count on it.

Now onto the bad points or rather the really bad point and the forgivable and expected snags that seem to very tenacious and hard to stamp out of the movie industry. These snags that I speak of can basically be attributed to the wanting to make movie more marketable resulting in the simplification of the writing and the outright black and white morality in the movie. Going by, well, most of the movie, you get the feeling that there was actually more to the story and that it could have gone for a more complex and more unorthodox ending. You don’t go out of your way to make such well written characters to have them play out such a simple conclusion. It’s something worth a short lamenting but not something would ruin the overall feel and fun of the film. What is worth lamenting over and over again however is the fact that they sold it a 3D movie when there was minimal 3D work done in there. The previews looked far more impressive in 3D than the movie ever did and that’s just sad. I would have preferred to watch it in 2D with more vivid colors and pay for it at the standard ticket price. 3D is an element that shouldn’t have to take away from the movie experience but when used badly it becomes easy to denounce its wonders. When used properly it would make even make me want to watch the Sorcerer’s Apprentice again in 3D and I just abhorred that piece of crap.

To sum it up, Tangled is a fun and surprisingly well done movie that I’d recommend to those curious enough to solicit my opinion of it. In fact, I imagine I’d enjoy watching it again but I suppose I’ll have to wait till the Disney, HBO or Star Movies channels start showing it sometime next year as I do not want to have to sit through another hour and a half of fun with 3D glasses over my own spectacles. I really hope they clean those damn things.

Supercell's Hero Plus English Lyrics

2010-12-02T11:21:00.005+08:00

Supercell's latest single just showed up on Nico Nico douga and I'm pleased to say I'm pleased with the song this time around. Utakata no Hanabi was nice slow song but to it just didn't feel like one of Ryo's compositions. None of his riveting strings to lift up and bring down the song's mood and thus nothing that really clicked with me like in their previous works. Thankfully "Hero" brings what I like best about their works - Ryo's story-like structured melodies, Nagi's sincere sounding emotion-filled singing and the sweet, short tale of the upbeat ballad. I wouldn't say that it's their best work so far but that doesn't stop it from being an incredibly catchy piece of music. Pretty sure I'll be listening to this for the next week or so myself.

Also, I took a half hour of my time to translate the lyrics since I was curious just what kind of song this was and why it was commissioned for the sake a manga which just seems to have made its debut. Used the romaji lyrics from this website to work it out. First time I translated a song though so it's a little rough since I usually have visuals to help me out on my scripts.

Supercell - Hero

As she talked to a friend that smile of hers was all too lovely
I pictured that form of hers as that of a heroine in some manga
I fell in love the moment my eyes saw her
I really, really came to like her
But you see, if she saw me
I would definitely be hated

See, that giggling voice again
It's fine though, I'm used to it after all
I'll forget about it but my chest feels like it's bursting

That's how the boy met
I wished that was definitely not just some coincidence
So that I would meet you
I wished it so many times
Someday, definitely!
But for people, that kind of miracle
They'll say they don't believe in it

The girls whisper
"That boy has been looking here since just now
What's up with that, it's gross
Don't come any closer you downer"
Sorry, I didn't mean to...
As I hung my head down, her voice called out
"I know this person!"
In my amazement I was dumbfounded as well

"I saw the drawings on that table
You drew them all right?"
Ahh! They're going to laugh at me again
But then you went
"I like things like this"

That's how the boy met her
Even if you were by billions of light years away
He'd still be captivated by you
No matter what obstacles are there
Overcoming all that
If that is to be called fate
Then he's sure to be a hero

But that day I saw it
Alone, your eyes swelling in tears
How powerless can I be
No wait, what did she say?
By your own doubtful existence
The girl is waiting to saved

"Acting all brave but actually a crybaby
Umm, this one's almost exactly like me"
She finally smiled! In front of the rejoicing me
But she who was in tears
What should I do?
You said this
"Thank You"

The boy met you
And he learnt of the meaning in living
Not that of a lie but a truth
And so, he'll become the knight that will protect you
Someday, definitely,
His left hand and her right
They will hold on tightly so that they won't part

And so I met you

[EDIT] Managed to check it further with the Japanese lyrics here so these should be as correct as I can make them.

[EDIT] Anon pointed out a mistake I made in one of the verses. Corrected.

Pudding on /b/!!

2010-12-01T11:42:00.002+08:00

Video: Hoshi no Samidare MAD OP + The Pillows

2010-11-29T15:58:00.000+08:00

Came across this fanmade MAD OP of Hoshi no Samidare a.k.a. The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer and while it's not quite exactly a fitting OP for an animated version of the manga it's still pretty well-done and captures the awesomeness of the story quite nicely. It'd make a great trailer but I'm a little bit put off by the fact that I only found this just now. It's also making me want an anime adaptation even more but sadly I can only hope that GAINAX picks this up sometime soon. The series was practically tailored for their animation style so it really just has to go to them if they ever get it green-lighted. In any case enjoy the video down here along with a couple of the music videos by The Pillows as well as the other two Biscuit Hammer MADs. I'm not putting them all up cause these guys really made a lot of them.

The MAD in question

The song used in the video, Babylon Tenshi no Uta.

Rush

Terminal Heaven's Rock

I Think I Can

Ride on Shooting Star

Tiny Boat

Another Hoshi no Samidare MAD. Huge Spoilers if you haven't finished reading it all.

One more MAD I thought was worth sharing. Even more spoilerish.

Manga Review: Arisa

2010-11-28T17:37:00.000+08:00

Title: Arisa
Author: Andou Nasumi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shoujo, Mystery, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a pair of twin sisters, Tsubasa and Arisa, who have been living separately after their parents divorced and the mystery that surrounds the eponymous character and the strange game that her class plays. Shortly after reuniting with each other, Tsubasa impersonates Arisa at her school for a day and discover just how envious her school life seems compared to her own. However, a dark secret lies beneath the bright happy exterior of Arisa’s class as she apologizes her to her sister and lets herself fall out of her own window right after Tsubasa shows her a letter that was left for her in her shoe box. Wanting to know the reason behind her sister’s actions, Tsubasa starts impersonating Arisa at her school only to find that her class has been engaging in a secret game of chance called the King’s Game that rewards the winner by granting whatever wish they desire. A pretty interesting shoujo series this one. The manga starts off very strong with a mystery premise that just pulls you right in and keeps you guessing as to who the King really is. I lament the fact that this isn’t a dedicated mystery with the clues quickly being unraveled after their reveal. Though the shoujo style does add to the reading experience I would have liked a slow build up of clues to instead of using the reveals to flesh out the characters. Definitely a series worth checking out but mystery buffs might be annoyed with how the author handles their main point of interest.

Video: Hatsune Miku - むかしむかしのきょうのぼく by DECO*27

2010-11-25T12:44:00.000+08:00

Just found DECO*27's latest vocaloid song at the top of today's Nico Nico Douga rankings called むかしむかしのきょうのぼく which would translates to "Today's Me From Once Upon A Time". The song's about someone, in this video's case Miku, who's basically asking some anon to listen to the troubles she's been having and how it's got her feeling down since there's nobody else for her to confide in. The songs got three parts to it, the first being Miku having just asked the person to listen to her, the second about how she's trying her best despite the adversity thanks to the anon's encouragement and the third where she's looking back on those hard days and tells them that it's her turn to return the favor and thank her fans. Kudos to poeyama for making such a great video to accompany the song and throwing in all those references to Miku's journey from obscurity to fame in the real world. I wonder how long this one's going to stay on the charts.

Hatsune Miku - Today's Me From Once Upon A Time

Video: Mind-blowing Guitar Duet

2010-11-24T20:40:00.003+08:00

Found this little gem while I was browsing today's Nico-Nico Douga rankings and though I have absolutely no musical knowledge concerning guitars or otherwise, the duo in this video just blew me away with their unbelievable strumming. No idea if the two came together to make this video or someone just decided to mix together their own respective takes on wowaka's "Ura Omote Lovers" but damn if they didn't do an amazing job here. Click down on that video down there and prepare to have an eargasm!

And yes, that is a guy cosplaying in a high school girl's uniform.

Manga Review: Rave

2010-11-23T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Rave
Author: Hiro Mashima
Release: Weekly
Status: Complete
Genre: Shonen, Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure, Romance
Art: C
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: Hiro Mashima’s previous long-running series had anime adaptation I truly enjoyed. I thought it pretty well-paced, had a great story and loads and loads of creativity thrown into it. And though I was disappointed that it had to be cut short at what I thought was the halfway point of the series I still thought it was an amazing series. Unfortunately, I was wrong about it being the halfway point and was thoroughly disappointed with the arcs that followed after the point where the anime stopped. Apparently the author decided to stretch things out as much as possible with subplots that really didn’t need to be there and recycle the same old set of clichés for EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN battle that I just couldn’t believe how bad the series got after that. Power levels didn’t make sense anymore, character focus was all over the place and the lacking art style didn’t help. Somehow it did all get better once the art style improved and the story shifted its focus back on the Raves and how the characters tie into the whole scheme of the universe but not after spending half of its publication on pointless subplots and characters. I would have given the story an A rating if the middle chapters were condensed and handled better but there was too much crap in between the great starting and ending arcs. Seriously, Rave would have made an overall amazing shonen series had it not been for the middle. Good thing he’s gotten better with tying plotlines together in Fairy Tail.

Manga Review: Love Allergen

2010-11-20T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Love Allergen
Author: Akahori Satoru, Katsura Yukimaru
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Romance, Supernatural, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a boy and a girl who have allergies they want to rid themselves off and the task they must complete to make that a reality. Together they meet this personification of this mystical sentient blue Sakura tree who wishes to learn the meaning of love so that she can teach the human baby it will give birth to and with that goal in mind the pair are to find that answer she seeks in exchange for doing away of their allergies. Brought to you by the creators of Kashimashi~ Girl meets Girl, this series has a pretty good cast of characters. The boy is a kid who just moved into the village this story takes place in and hates his looks because of how much trouble his beauty brings him. It caused him to even renounce the very notion of love which is obviously going to change given how the manga starts off. The girl on the other hand is basically the idol of the village with reputation for having the irreproachable manners but in actually the most hyperactive and bubbly person in the manga. Unlike the boy’s mundane pollen allergy, her allergy is love itself. Anytime she feels anything close to that emotion, she breaks out in hives and her condition gets worse the more she’s exposed to it. The chemistry between these two characters alone is the source of maybe 70% of the humor and the jokes in this series rarely miss their marks. A great series with lots of good material and a lot to look forward to. Shame that no one’s gotten around to pick up the rest of the chapters since the original scanlator seems to have gone awol.

Manga Review: River’s Edge

2010-11-17T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: River’s Edge
Author: Okazaki Kyoko
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Josei, Slice of Life
Art: F
Originality: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a bunch of screwed up teenagers at a school in some random town that a river runs through. The story focuses mostly on the friendship between a girl in a dysfunctional relationship with an insecure jackass and the gay boy ostracized by said jackass’s gang along with several other members of their peers. A friend recommended this to me a while back so I should tell that if it weren’t for her recommendation, I wouldn’t even be going near this series on account of the horrible artwork and the angst filled premise. A little angst goes a long way in terms of characterization but nobody actually wants to see a bunch of teenagers feeling sorry for themselves doing stupid self destructive things. Thankfully though, the angst is played off quite well here. The setting and society shown in the story certainly justifies it since the bleakness of their lives is just absolutely depressing. Nobody seems to be anywhere near the well-adjusted mark in this series so it’s a little hard for me to take this story seriously. The author probably didn’t mean for the teens’ antics to be humorous but I found myself more amused at how silly they were rather than appalled at their behavior. Things do make sense and the themes of the story are done quite nicely but I honestly just cannot take this story seriously. Still, I enjoyed reading it so maybe you will too.

Manga Review: My Girl

2010-11-12T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: My Girl
Author: Sahara Mizu
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life
Art: S
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S+
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This story revolves around the lives of a barely out of college 23 year old office worker and his newfound five year old daughter and their days together as father and daughter. Having turned up at the funeral wake of his former girlfriend who’s been out of touch with him since she went abroad to study he learns that she been keeping a huge secret from him all these years. For the past five years she’s been raising their child all on her own without his knowledge and now their daughter comes to him to fill the void in their lives. A lovely little series that’s sure to melt the hearts of even the most hardened war veteran with its charming characters, delightful plots and adorable art style. Speaking of which, the art style on the covers and in the manga are of two completely different flavors for some reason though I do find both to be illustrations worthy of praise. Also, I’m completely aware just how corny this sounds but this manga is chock full of love. It’s basically “Clannad: After Story” under a different name sans the wretched tearjerking moments it’s famous for – so far that is and hopefully it’ll stay that way. This definitely belongs in the TvTropes under the sweet dreams fuel section and hopefully someone will get around to creating a page for this series there. A wonderful title all around and most definitely worth a thorough read.

Manga Review: Yozakura Quartet

2010-11-11T17:37:00.000+08:00

Title: Yozakura Quartet
Author: Suzuhito Yasuda
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This story takes place in a town surrounded by seven gigantic Sakura where humans and youkai live together in peace. This peace is upheld by a foursome who run an office purposed with taking care of youkai-related issues including rampaging youkai, rampaging half-youkai as well as babysitting kindergarteners. This office officially consists of a telepathic fox youkai, a kotodama user, the town’s 16 year old mayor and an ordinary human. Quite a solid series this one. There’s quite a nice assortment of colorful characters in this series with uniquely memorable quirks and they’re all given appropriate amounts of screen time. This does hamper with the plot’s progression a little bit since the author seems to prioritize them over the overarching plot. On the other hand, it does make for excellent story arcs but the series itself hasn’t shown us anything that looks like a halfway point for the story even after forty chapters. Now that I think about it, I honestly can’t predict what might come up in future arcs thanks since it still feels like it’s missing more key characters or plot devices that would determine the ending. As of the latest chapter I’ve read, we have the heroes, the things at stake, the key villain, the imminent and eventual threats but not anything that really ties them together or any urgency to take care of things. As good as I find this to be, I still feel it’s a little too early to expect this to end brilliantly but I’m certainly going to stick with this the rest of the way.

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

2010-11-10T20:19:00.002+08:00

Glad I could finally watch Edgar Wright’s latest work since it sadly never got around to premiering in theatres in Brunei for some reason even though the trailers did screen here a couple months ago. Hot Fuzz and Shawn of the Dead are up there on my list of favourite movies along with V for Vendetta, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile so I figured I might as well get another one of the guy’s movies up there. Unfortunately, it’s not going up there. Can’t even say it was anywhere near the entrance but I’m quite certain it’ll make it into someone else’s list.

The movie is about this NEET in a band who goes by the name of Scott Pilgrim and has an in-movie rating of awesome. One day he sees this punk rocker-ish chick in the library and falls for her the instant he does and decides to do whatever he can to make her his girlfriend. He tries and after some pretty pathetic tries he sees some degree of success only to have one of her exs come in on one of his band’s performances with the intention of pummeling him into oblivion with his superpowers. Now getting and understanding this declaration of war, Scott now has to fight and defeat all seven evil exs of his new love interest. What follows after is a flurry awesome, flashy, loud and funny – everything a block buster should be and more.

Now let me address the strongest point of the movie – the writing. Edgar Wright is one of those sadly too few writers who’s capable of turning a convention on its head and show us a side that we would not expect and love it for that. Scott pilgrim’s script references so, so, so many different tropes and combines, inverts, subverts, averts and plays with them at such breakneck speeds that they almost flew over my head. I can’t imagine how confounding it must have been for those not equipped with the knowledge that comes with wasting time on TvTropes but I do know anyone would feel overwhelmed during this movie no matter what. The transitions between scenes does get disorientating from time to time and that does detract from the experience no matter how inventive it may be but I found the pacing to be quite well done in terms of cramming the fights and character establishing scenes.

I would say some star power from Simon Pegg probably could’ve pushed this movie right into my favourites list but that would be a lie. The actors played their parts brilliantly so I doubt his inclusion would have made much of a difference. It’s actually the romance that my most of my displeasure with the movie stems from which is an incredibly unusual thing for me to complain about. As marvelously fluid and tight the writing and directing was, the budding romance between Scott and Ramona just felt horribly forced. Love at first sight? Fine. Love makes you blind? Also fine. Going for the girl who’s still lukewarm towards you after having put you into one near death experience after another when it’s much easier to feel pity towards her rather than anything remotely close to affection while the girl who’s developed a stalker-level crush on you urges to go after her? Scott, not only did she blind you but her presence seems to have altered personalities in this movie including but not limited to your own. From a certain point of view that’s also a perfect demonstration of some brand of the Mary Sue trope which is a worth yet another kudos for Edgar Wright’s talent but I can’t say it justifies the bad romance here.

To sum things up, the film was flashy, action-packed and hilarious but all too easy to lose track of. Absolutely worth watching and I regret that I was not able to watch it on the silver screen but I just can’t bring myself to put it up as one of my favourites with my dissatisfactions towards the movie. Here’s hoping we’ll see the third of Edgar Wright’s, Simon Pegg’s and Nick Frost’s Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy sometime soon.

Manga Review: Little Little

2010-11-08T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Little Little
Author: Rokuko
Release: Monhtly
Status: Complete
Genre: Slice of Life
Art: S
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is a series done almost entirely done without dialogue and focuses on the day to day lives of a frail young girl and the little fox girl that stumbles into her garden one day. The fox girl quickly becomes attached to her and quickly becomes a resident of the girl’s household. Quite remarkably well done really. Here’s a series without a plot and only one instance of dialogue(used brilliantly by the way) that manages to tell a story that’s both endearing and enjoyable despite all of its restrictions. I was hoping it was yuri series when I first found it but as far as I can tell it’s just got fluff that comes with yuri manga and none of the actual romance. Not complaining though, I loved the tranquil ambience of the series and the innocence portrayed here so I’ll have to say it’s worth checking out.

Manga Review: The Phantom King

2010-11-04T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: The Phantom King
Author: Im Dal Young, Yoon Jae Ho
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: B
Originality: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: If it were any other author I’d have to give this at least a C in terms of originality but Im Dal Young has rehashed the same old plot so, so, so many times now that I can’t understand why exactly he writes so many different stories simultaneously. It’s your run of the mill supernatural shonen manga set in a village where an incident involving shadowy monsters called evil took place years ago and centers around a bunch of survivors from then who came out of it with no memories of their past selves. Trouble has been starting up recently with the evil sealed up secretly in the huge rock formations just outside the village coming up one by one, possessing and killing people with significant levels of negative emotions. I found this to be the most lacking of all their works so far with the half-assed premise and storytelling so I wouldn’t be too keen on spending any time reading this if I were you. I really liked Aflame Inferno by these guys with the great characters and its atypical focus on them but I can’t see this turning out anywhere near as good as Aflame Inferno. Far too typical and shallow to even compare to it.

Video: Unbelievable Victory!! Level 1 Pokemon vs Sinnoh Champion Cynthia!!!

2010-11-02T15:36:00.002+08:00

This is just plain ridiculous. I know there are some really, really, really serious people about pokemon and the whole meta-battling stuff out there but I never thought I'd see a team of level ONE pokemon take out a champion's team, one whose average levels are 75! How he got level one pokemon in Black and White so quickly doesn't really matter, it's the fact that this guy used said pokemon to take down a champion with some of the most brilliant strategies I've ever seen. Seriously! You just have to see this for yourself!

Manga Review: Mushibugyo

2010-11-01T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Mushibugyo
Author: Fukuda Hiroshi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Historical
Art: A
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series features a main character happens to be a guy with a whole lot of spirit and the brute strength to back it up and he aspires to make it big as a warrior in Edo. One day, this guy from said city comes to scout him as a protector of the capital. He eagerly accepts and soon finds himself in said city but not quite for the reasons he believed. He’s there to protect the city alright but not from soldiers from another province, robbers from some band of ruffians or even fierce, ferocious, fearsome bears – he was brought as pest control. He is the latest in a long line of new recruits for the Mushibugyo monster bug elimination squad because of his talents in combat. Pretty mediocre really. The only thing I actually like about it is the art style. Everything else is substandard, especially the main character himself who’s only proved himself to be a one trick pony. Can’t see any reason to recommend this one.

Manga Review: Princess Lucia

2010-10-28T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Princess Lucia
Author: Seo Kouji
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Ecchi, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series is about a guy who one day suddenly has the princess of the demon race appear before him in his room demanding him to take her then and there so they can conceive a child together. The guy was born at a truly auspicious moment having six 6’s lined up for his own moment of birth and it is said any child born of a person and a demon will possess the power needed for world domination. The manga itself isn’t quite as unimaginative as it sounds though. The demon race has fallen over the past thousands of years leading to the Demon King having to run a ramen shop for a living in these modern days. Their only hope of regaining their once mighty standing in the world is the child to be born between the guy and the demon princess so she decides to take one for the team and get him to copulate with her while fending off the harassment of the two guardian angels watching him. Furthermore, one of the two angels responsible for him happens to be the girl that the guy had a crush on long before the titular princess Lucia shows up. I didn’t particularly care for the mangaka’s other series(Kimi no Iru Machi) but I do like the fun he’s having with this series. Straight out romances aren’t my thing so I really did appreciate the fact that he threw in some fun elements into an otherwise mediocre love triangle story. Worth checking out but you’re only going to stick around if you’re the kind who values fun over serious storytelling.

Manga Review: Koharu no Hibi

2010-10-27T17:37:00.004+08:00

Title: Koharu no Hibi
Author: Ooshiro Youkou
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Romance, Psychological, Seinen
Art: B
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: You know how love triumphs all else? How the main couples in stories would usually overcome their crisis by believing in each other and sticking to their guns now how bad things looked. Nothing is as powerful or everlasting as true love. A wonderful statement wouldn’t you agree? Well, I’d have to agree that love is a powerful thing but it’s not always as pure and innocent as romantics would make it out to be. I actually find it to be a terrifying emotion and if you feel that I’m wrong let this series show you a way in which why my opinion about this matter is perfectly valid and justified. This series is about a guy who bumps into this tiny timid girl who happens to be one of his juniors at school while riding the train back home. He helps her with her fallen books and a couple days later gets cookies from her as thanks. He then keeps running into her as if they were in a sweet high school romance story but he soon discovers that this seemingly innocent tale has a disturbing twist to it. The otherwise cute little girl is not only in love with him, she is obsessed with him. And it’s not usual kind obsession, she doesn’t have these obvious signs of mental instability so it’s all the more disturbing when she really, really, REALLY loves the guy and is taking every sweet little thing you can do for the one you love and amplify the sweetness till it gets sickeningly so. Seriously, I almost labeled this as a horror series but figured it’s more in the psychological kind of thing since the main subject matter is obsessive love. Loving the subversion this story is going for the theme of love so I personally recommend this one to those of you who love yanderes.

Nerf Nitefinder EX-3 Mod

2010-10-25T18:07:00.000+08:00

Just a few days ago I bought my first nerf gun, the Nitefinder EX-3 pistol. My brother has a couple of them namely two Maverick REV-6s and the N-Strike Recon but I waited till I had some extra cash to pick up one for myself. I actually wanted to get the Longshot but they don’t seem to sell them anymore in Brunei. There are a lot of Longstrikes though but that’s supposed to have lousy performance even after modding. Not wanting to buy a rifle model that I would not be able to mod satisfyingly enough I decided to opt for the Nitefinder until a Longshot pops up somewhere in one of the stores here.

Now, I’ve been searching around online for good sites that would help me out in modding my new nerf pistol and boost the range but only came across very few posts about actually modding the Nitefinder to do so. Right out of stock the thing is stated to shoot 25ft-35ft (7.5-10.5m) away parallel to the ground but I found mine only shot about 15 paces away parallel which was about 18ft (5.4m). This was about two thirds of the range my brother gets with his guns so obviously I was unsatisfied with this so I chose to make adjustments.

What I write here will not exactly be a modding guide but more like my findings on how and why the mods work. I will be giving details on the mods I made to my own gun but unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures as I modded the thing so you’re going to have to settle with a textbook like explanation.

1) Air Restrictor Removal
The Air Restrictor is the first thing you’ll want to take care off before anything else. As the name implies, this part limits the amount of air that gets utilized in launching the dart. It does this in two ways. The first would be by limiting the of air flow going into the barrel when you prime it and the second would be by restricting the air that pushes out the dart when you pull the trigger. You won’t see much change until you remove this part so you really have to get rid of it. For newer models of this gun, you’re going to have to cut through the barrel along the furthest ring on the barrel with a thin but sturdy knife before you can take it out and reseal it with tape or some sort of bonding agent later on. Incidentally, you’ll want to load the bullet after priming the gun since the dart gives the same effect as the Air Restrictor by the first way. That goes especially for fully modded guns.

2) Spring Reinforcement
Obviously, the spring is the part that influences the power the most so get to it here. Think of it like a rubber band and you’ll understand that the more you pull back the stronger the recoil will be when you release it. What you need to do here is make it harder to pull back the plunger and I did that by rolling another spring in between the stock spring. For some reason, I have yet to find a hardware store in Brunei that sells springs so I made do with the spring from my brother’s broken Maverick. Problem with this is that the recoil is too strong that you won’t be able to prime the gun if you leave the cocking mechanism unmodified. To remedy this you’re going to have to either use a strong pen spring to replace the tiny spring that keeps the plunger in place after priming and/or carve out a little of the indent so that it curves slightly inwards instead of just being a straight wall.

3) Plunger Padding
The plunger isn’t really all that airtight right out of stock so you’ll want to add padding to make it so as well as to reduce the stress on the plunger when it slams back into the barrel. Not quite sure how much this improves the air pressure but having all the air push out of the barrel is better than having less. Use some soft and non-porous form of padding for this. Also, you might want to sew it onto the plunger head in addition to gluing it because I personally don’t trust the glue to remain stuck after a couple hundred shots.

4) Results
By the end of it, my Nitefinder was shooting a minimum of 30(36ft/10.8m) paces parallel to the ground and easily 50(60ft/18m) angled slightly upward. I say minimum because the gun now switches from straight shots to spinning shots almost every other pull of the trigger and that drastically reduces the travel distance. Still, a modded misfire ended up twice as far as a normal unmodified shot and that’s a plus. It can even shoot those slim cartridge darts that always misfired under normal specs. I get the best distance with vertical shots since it consistently reaches 4 stories upwards. Accuracy’s also pretty good when aimed that way as I’ve shot a friend from four floors below him in a shopping centre. Yes, I shot him with a nerf gun in the middle of a shopping centre. QLap mall for Bruneians curious as to where I did this.

As for the newfound lack of accuracy and consistency with horizontal shooting, I’m guessing the power reached its limiting factor (i.e. pressure) and now releases excessive amounts of air along with the required amount needed for compression to overcome the friction keeping the dart in place. Basically that means not all the air is utilized for the shot and the extra bit winds up messing with the accuracy of the shot. That’s the reason why I get such fantastic results shooting upwards. Gravity and air pressure act more keenly on the dart increasing the resistance of the dart allowing more pressure to build up before the dart launches out of the barrel. In my gun’s case, my optimum shooting angle would be somewhere between 50-70 degrees upwards as I have gotten the range past 40m shooting within that range.

I have yet to devise a method to rectify this inefficiency but I do know that I have to up the friction enough for all of the air in the barrel to build up before launching the dart into the air but not so much that it would end up reducing the speed instead. My theory is that I should increase it at the very base of the dart so that the extra friction allows more pressure to build up without increasing the overall resistance in the barrel too much. Hopefully I’ll figure out a modification that won’t need regular maintenance. Additionally, if you think that I have made errors with the physics of the entire thing then feel free to correct me on whatever you feel is wrong as my knowledge in that particular field of study is limited to O’ level standards.

Manga Review: Ookami ga Kuru!

2010-10-20T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Ookami ga Kuru!
Author: Nanto Hanamaru
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing (Finished/Sequel)
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of two young men who run a branch of an organization dealing with the supernatural and the occult loving heiress who becomes their benefactor. The manga starts off with the young lady stumbling around in an old castle owned by her grandfather hoping to run into some supernatural phenomena, specifically vampires. Unfortunately for her, she runs into zombie-like ghouls instead. Fortunately though, the younger of the two slayers of the supernatural comes to her rescues and proceeds to bail her out of further trouble cause by the unexpected awakening of an unknown vampire. While this series doesn’t bring anything new to stories of this nature it does have a refreshing approach when it comes to the story. It doesn’t go full out on the secret monster extermination plot but goes about it by making work for the slayers more mundane and realistic than the usual stuff. The main goal of their activities is to protect people from the supernatural and that also happens to entail debunking hearsay and covering things up. This gives it a quite a good bit of humor to throw in there along with episodic plots that don’t always end typically which is why I find it refreshing to read. I’d even say it’s an attempt at deconstructing these kinds of stories which is always a nice thing to see, especially for those who know what to expect with this territory. No need to worry about it being short, the manga still goes on after the first two volumes only under a different name. Definitely worth checking out so I suggest you go and do just that.

On a side note, why do I keep running into German online and in the manga I read? You’d think I’d run into Japanese or Chinese more often than German but I keep running into it for some reason.

Video: 9th Doctor's Public Service Announcement

2010-10-18T22:14:00.002+08:00

An old public service announcement by the guy who played the 9th incarnation of The Doctor. Very, very, very well done thanks to Christopher Eccleston's act. Shame he was The Doctor and not The Master cause Steven Moffat would have had a great time writing him as The Master.

Movie Review: Fate/Stay - Night Unlimited Blade Works

2010-10-17T13:52:00.007+08:00

Finally got around to watching the Unlimited Blade Works movie that I’ve been hoping for ever since I played through that scenario in the original. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait quite as long as most of the other fans did since that was more or less a year and a half ago. This adaptation of my favorite route in the game was a story that was simply far too epic and too grand to be told properly in just an hour and forty minutes.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the game, this is an alternate retelling of the Fate/Stay Night anime where a secret war held between seven magi and the heroic spirits they summon as their servants duke it out so they can attain the Holy Grail and have their greatest wish granted. In this route, Shirou and the others face off against Berserker in a slightly different way than in fate and this triggers a different chain of events that ultimately lead to a confrontation between Shirou and Archer.

If I remember right, Unlimited Blade Works took me a couple more hours more to finish than the Fate route did and had quite a bit more focus and characterization with Shirou and Rin as well as plenty of awesome battles. Unfortunately, it is because it so packed that this movie feels lacking. Battles are nothing short of amazing but the other aspects of this adaptation makes one wonder if the was really what they should have focused on. Scenes jump from one point to another with nary a proper transition leaving loads and loads of gap that have to be filled with prior knowledge of the story. To be precise, you have to play the Ultimate Blade Works route to really get the movie and even then the gaps are still pretty jarring. Almost all of the characterization is stripped away from the story and a lot of the build-up to the most GARsome battle in the game gets taken away as a result of this. The revelation of Archer’s identity comes off as underwhelming and seemingly pulled out of nowhere.

There really are only two things you can applaud about this movie: fantastic visuals and mind blowing battles. Sure, the studio still throws in those budget saving distance shots but in no way do they ever employ such tactics without throwing in some other element to make up for it during the battles. I’m guessing they knew there was just no way they were going to pull the story off properly so they decided to go all out on the glorious clashes between the characters. The final confrontation between Shirou and Archer was as close to perfection as it could get for an animated version of the battle with only one tiny flaw at the very end of it i.e. Shirou’s voice actor didn’t deliver that last bit as strongly as he should have. Everything else was just absolutely sublime in that battle so that’s easily forgiven though.

Basically, if you expected to see what made Unlimited Blade Works such a magnificent tale then you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if your only reason to watch it was to bear witness to the amazing battles that came with it then you won't be in the least. Ultimately, this movie was brilliantly and dazzlingly flashy but took to things so superficially that it will only make fans cry out that this should have been the story that got animated the first time around. Still worth watching though, some bits more than a few times.

Manga Review: Manga no Tsukurikata

2010-10-15T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Manga no Tsukurikata
Author: Auri Hirau
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Yuri, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is a yuri series based around two young women who are both mangaka. Well, one of them is a mangaka at the beginning of the story and the other is on a hiatus of sorts. The younger of the two is in love with the older one who happened to be her senior at their high school before she graduated. The older one doesn’t hold any mutual sentiments towards her admirer but decides to go out with her for a while so she can figure how to the draw yuri manga. This is one of those light and fluffy yuri series infused with a good dose of silliness to go with the many, many slice of life scenes thrown in there. Now that I think about it this might actually be better described as a slice of life with a dash of yuri given how much focus is put on their daily lives. The romance develops very subtly and very slowly but it’s done in such a way that you can easily tell how their relationship is progressing. In fact, you’d have to be completely blind if you didn’t realize that the pretend lovers play turned into the real thing before the older girl realized it. Seriously, you’d have to be absolutely blind to such matters if you needed to see verbal confirmation from her to know it happened. At any rate, this is a pretty good yuri series that doesn’t depend on teasing to keep the readers interested but still manages to do so with its quiet and slightly goofy storytelling.

Manga Review: Working!

2010-10-12T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Working!
Author: Karino Takatsu
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Romance
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This recently(relatively) animated 4koma manga is centers around a café and its staff made up of a whole bunch of colorful personalities. I haven’t watched the anime version yet but I’ve heard good things about it and based on what I’ve read so far, it had some good material to go on. The jokes are mostly focused on the characters quirks and how they interact with each other on a regular day at work. Haven’t found any problems with so far even though the setup here would make it easy for lesser mangaka to exaggerate the quirks and turn the characters into one dimensional jokes. The mangaka even throws in a good amount of character development in there for good measure. A decent comedy with no obvious flaws to find.

Manga Review: Natsu no Arashi

2010-10-10T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Natsu no Arashi
Author: Kobayashi Jin
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Supernatural, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Romance, Historical
Art: B
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series comes from the author of School Rumble and it’s about a thirteen year old boy and the experiences he goes through during one particular summer. He meets this high school girl from a bygone era who claims to be a ghost from 60 years prior to the summer they met and with his help, the two of them are able to leap back into time. Aside from enjoying the perks and hijinx that time travel brings, they also go back to the bombing days of World War 2 to save people from the burning mess that the conflict generated. For someone like Kobayashi Jin who’s famous for his comedy (and infamous for the ‘pie’ ending), you’d never think he’d be capable of threading a story with so many different elements thrown into it so seamlessly. The guy’s great at coming up with memorable characters and hilariously epic over the top jokes but he’s not too shabby with telling serious stories either. The first few chapters only hint at how intense the story gets later on in the series. He doesn’t even bother to make the humor as zany as School Rumble’s hence the B score for the humor department. It’s quite telling when SHAFT’s adaptations of the series are actually funnier and sillier than their original source. Don’t take it as though I meant it doesn’t have it silly moments. Those are certainly there but storytelling and characterization are the focus of this series here. Definitely worth reading but you shouldn’t expect another School Rumble in any way. This is a dish of an entirely different flavor but as far as I can tell it’s turning out to be a great one.

P.s. Check out Kobayashi Jin’s profile. He actually does look like Harima Kenji of School Rumble!

Manga Review: Bloody Cross

2010-10-08T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Bloody Cross
Author: Komeyama Shiwo
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This story features several characters of supernatural origin who are aiming for the inheritances of god, artifacts filled with god’s power. The story starts off with a pair of mixed-blood angels who share a symbol branded onto their bodies that bind them to a curse that will eventually kill them and because of that both the guy and girl are seeking out one of the aforementioned artifacts to free themselves of their curse. However, the two are not trusting by nature and work together for the sake of their very lives as they are not the only ones after the item. That includes the pure blood angel that intends on using them to acquire these immensely powerful artifacts. This is a pretty good battle manga with its great art and fights but storywise, it’s a little clunky. It’s not exactly a mindless sort of story with its “who’s going to betray who first” thing but the motivations and detailing behind the actions that the characters take are mindboggling to say the least. With the exception of one character who seemed to have been upgraded to main character status(I would have preferred the girl to be the star actually) after the first few chapters, the characterization is pretty consistent here. The silliness is also a bit quirky with its timing and delivery but I think that gives it an interesting touch. Also, don’t expect much pretentiousness here. The premise and tension in the first few chapters may make it look like the usual angsty vampire manga but I’ve found it to be quite a fun read. Yup, I’ll take a slightly clunky joyride over emo sourpusses any day of the week.

Manga Review: Super Dreadnought Girl 4946

2010-10-07T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Super Dreadnought Girl 4946
Author: Takeshi Azuma
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Romance
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This is about a hot blooded high schooler who’s not only short in the literal sense but also in his luck with women. He had yet to have a girl fall for him despite his chivalrous ways and his active attempts at finding one that would. The vertically challenged hero does eventually find one though in the form of a sweet natured young girl. However, that girl happens to be the secret giant supernatural lifeform that Japan’s government has put all their hopes on in defending themselves against similarly sized monsters bent on laying waste to their country. After an act of chivalry on the guy’s part, the girl ends the first chapter with a confession among the ruins of the guy’s destroyed school. There are a few aspects of this manga that really make it feel like the mangaka is just throwing whatever random thing he feels like into the plot but I can’t really say that takes away from the series very much. Sure it gets really overdone at several points in the story and you can’t help but cringe at how annoying some of them come off as but this series manages to pull together a fun energetic pace all the while. The characterization does feel somewhat shallow but since this series is going for the very end of the idealistic spectrum of the cynicism vs idealism scale, I’d have to say that in-depth characterization might actually take away from the experience. I hated those angsty chapters with the American spy so I’m pretty sure that the author should just stick with the fun and light hearted approach and avoid any attempt to dig out anymore unnecessary mood breakers like them.

Manga Review: Imouto wa Shinsuki

2010-10-06T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Imouto wa Shinsuki
Author: Ujie Tozen
Release: Weekly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Comedy, Slice of Life, Ecchi
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: That title translates as “My Little Sister is going through Puberty” and this manga features a pair of high school siblings. The brother is an average guy who plays the straight man to his sister’s antics, all of which happen to be related to some form of deviance. I’m told that girls think about such matters as much as guys but this girl manages to outdo even the most sexually depraved person I know and he earned a reputation for it back in our school days. Imagine having your little sister shamelessly talking to you about things that wouldn’t be out of place on 4chan’s /b/ board out in the open. Just think about how uncomfortable that would be. Now think about how funny it would be know someone in that position. That’s how funny this series is. Worth checking out if you need a good laugh and also really worth checking out for tips just in case your little sister starts acting like this.

Manga Review: Boku no Tsukuru Sekai

2010-10-04T22:24:00.004+08:00

Title: Boku no Tsukuru Sekai
Author: Ayami Kazama
Release: Irregular
Status: Complete
Genre: Fantasy, Slice of Life, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is a compilation of short stories that are loosely connected to one another though the epilogue chapter does pull all of it together. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to project whatever image they can think of using magical lanterns - in 3D! Certainly an interesting concept there but one that’s more fitting for a movie. The individual stories in each chapter are quite nice and the characters that go with them are quite endearing. Worth checking out for a light read since this series is neither too long nor too short for that. With its charming art style and fairy-tale like stories, you can’t help but have a sweet impression after reading it. It also helps that this was done by the mangaka behind Chokotto Hime which I myself described as "GAH! THIS! IS! TOO! DAMN! CUUUUTE! ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!".

Manga Review: Crimson Shell

2010-10-01T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Crimson Shell
Author: Jun Mochizuki
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Fantasy, Mystery
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: D
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is a prior work of the author of Pandora Hearts with a premise that’s reminiscent of her current work in nearly every way. The story features characters with designs that are carbon copies of various characters in Pandora Hearts and the mysterious powers with big drawbacks thing albeit with semi-sentient plants rather than fully sentient monsters. The story isn’t very inspired but it does possess the same air of mystery and suspense in Pandora Hearts has so it maintains a very nice mood to go with the plot. Speaking of which, it’s about this girl with revered powers and the people around her in the mysterious organization she’s a part of and the betrayal of someone very close to her and the truth behind her origin. That having been said, the plot likes to change it focus in every one of its six chapters and the characters get adapted to the plot rather than being the driving force behind it so both of those aspects suffer quite a bit from it. Scenes that were supposed to deliver the payload from all the build-up ended up being very cheesy and highly predictable so it’s hard to feel for any of the characters here. Pandora Hearts’ prototype lacks the full version’s solid characterization, the annoying mood whiplashes and tries to make up for it with a very schizophrenic plot. Not exactly worth a recommendation here.

Manga Review: Variante

2010-09-30T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Variante
Author: Sugimoto Iqura
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Horror
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a girl who wakes up on a hospital bed one night after having gone through a very traumatic experience just a few days before only to find that she did not come out of it quite the same. The arm attached to her left shoulder is no longer her own as it’s been replaced by a mutated, semi-sentient shape-shifting one that’s capable of fighting off grotesquely deformed monsters whose. The girl faces an uncertain future in the care of a mysterious organization responsible for quietly taking care of these monsters where and whenever they show up as she can only prove herself valuable to them in two ways: eliminating the monsters so they can retrieve samples or she gives up and becomes a sample herself – a living sample. Despite that Shonen-esque premise there, this is definitely a Seinen title as the girl does not get a break and has to face the horrors of her new life as nearly everyone around her regards her as a monster. I don’t have any gripes about this series really. The premise, story, scenes and characterization worked together satisfactorily and I can’t find any significant contradictions here but it never goes beyond what I expected it to be. The realism thrown into the story certainly helped maintain its quality throughout the four volumes that were published but it also restricted it in what could be done. It’s a decent series but you’re not going to get anything you can’t find in any other manga of this kind of plot.

Manga Review: Baba Yaga

2010-09-28T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Baba Yaga
Author: Kizuki Akira, Satou Nanki
Release: Quarterly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Psychological, Mystery, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: Baba Yaga is the story of a few kids who all went to a camp together and experienced their own life-changing events while they were there. These events are all linked to the mysterious disappearance of a young woman who was there at the camp with them and each of these kids grew up to be the way they are as young adults because of what they experienced then. It features a whole slew of messed-up characters and a mystique that borders on the supernatural but so far stays grounded in reality with a much more convoluted and twisted truth behind both the events and the way the characters treat them and each other. It’s quite a fascinating read really as the layered story and depth of the characters just pulls you right into the twisted little world that the authors have portrayed here. Not one to be missed for fans of either of these mangaka as I find it to be their best collaboration yet. Only real downside to this manga is the slow release rate of new chapters but it's excusable as it seems they put that time to good use here in this series.

Manga Review: Taboo Tatoo

2010-09-27T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Taboo Tatoo
Author: Shinjirou
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Fantasy
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This is a relatively new monthly manga that has my hopes high up there. It’s about these secret magical tattoos that grant their bearers unbelievable powers and nations all over the world are vying over for them, maintaining the illusion of normalcy only to have someone passing a good number of these out to random bystanders in Japan. One such bystander happens to be the main character of the series, a hot-blooded young man with a strong sense of justice and the martial arts skills to back up his ideals and he just happened to receive a particularly special tattoo from the man who gave it to him. Not knowing what he had been dragged into, a female American agent of a seemingly similar age to him fills him in on the situation, beating the crap out of while doing so. Throw in a megalomaniacal princess brutally overthrowing her parents and effectively becoming the dictator of the country these tattoos originate from and you get a very well done manga. The first chapter did follow a rather predictable formula that has become common enough nowadays for these sort of stories but the manga quickly cut to the chase and dives right into the action, trick-shooting off all sorts of tropes at rapid fire at a pace that was not only invigorating but also accommodated the story, characters and the premise satisfyingly well. It’s rare to see a series that manages to maintain such a fast pace without compromising its quality much less one with characters with such strong personalities. That female agent could very well be THE poster girl for the Little Miss Badass trope with her being an eternally adolescent secret agent with CQC skills along with a super power. Heck, she even pulls off a Badass Longcoat trope from time to time. Basically, if you like your manga with superpowers, amazing fights and great characters then this is the manga for you. Somewhere down the line, I expect that they will adapt this into an amazing anime series but I imagine half a decade will have gone by before this even gets to a point where it’ll get a proper adaptation. Shame about the wait but I’m betting it’ll be worth it.

Manga Review: Momo

2010-09-25T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Momo
Author: Sakai Mayu
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shoujo, Fantasy, Romance, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of an average everyday high school girl and her quest to save the world from a planet destroying devil called Momo that she happened to run into one day. This particular ender of worlds has taken the form and personality of a little girl and because of an act that the main character pulls, she is chosen to represent the human race and is given time to find seven reasons for the Earth to avoid its untimely end by Momo’s hands and remain in one piece. In addition to this, the plot also entails a romance between the main character and one of Momo’s servants that gradually develops over the series. It’s certainly got an interesting idea going on here and the story plays out quite well but I find that some of the plot twists thrown in to add tension to the story a little sloppy. While I do find that the characters do work well with the plot, I can’t help but feel that most of them are rather bland and feel little more than some character archetype despite the fact that they actually do develop over the story. That being said, I still find it to be a good shoujo manga to add to your reading list despite the lack of polish on its characters.

Manga Review: Fourteen

2010-09-24T17:37:00.004+08:00

Title: Fourteen
Author: Kazuo Umezu
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Seinen
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Good god this manga is freaky. Fourteen is about a chicken-man hybrid being born from a vat of genetically modified chicken meat as a curse from the animals of the Earth. Humanity’s dominance now permeates every fiber of the entire planet and it is now a mere shadow of the beautiful world it used to be. The chicken-man becomes deeply involved in events that will shape the future of humanity as the oncoming apocalypse approaches ever closer with a series of mysterious disasters that will all culminate in the extinction of the human race its last generation of offspring finally reach the age of fourteen. I kid you not when I say the first volume will freak you out with its excellent scenes flavoured with equal parts of horror and grotesqueness. The rest of the horror never comes as close as those first few do but they’re still pretty disturbing all the same. Despite its out of date style, the artwork works amazingly here and will just pull you right into the terror that the author infused into his series. I’m even willing to look past at all the research the author didn’t do since what really matters is the fear and not the fact that the author gets so many things wrong that political and economical minded people will want to bang their heads against the wall. This manga rises above its apparent lack of research and, in my honest opinion, does more than just rival Junji Ito’s brand of horror making it an absolute must read for horror lovers. Incidentally, I’d just love to see SHAFT pull out an anime of this. Shinbo’s crew is perfect for this series.

My Tropes I

2010-09-22T21:59:00.002+08:00

Came up a list of Tropes to describe what kind of person I am. Doesn’t feel quite complete yet but it should do for now. For those of you not familiar with TvTropes, feel free to click on the links to find out what these phrases mean. Try not to get addicted to the site though, TvTropes will ruin your life after all.

A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Read - Mine especially. Very messy in there. For one thing my mind likes switching between and mixing and matching English, Malay, Japanese and German. Then there’s the buzzing of lesser important thought trains among the few main few.
Absent Minded Professor - Without being an actual professor, this does apply to me.
Are You Sure You Want To Do That - My curiosity elicits this out of my friends from time to time. Especially frequent during Chemistry practicals.
Bag Of Holding - I have a knack for stuffing loads of things into places.
Batman Gambit - I pull these out to get someone else do something for me.
Bowties Are Cool - My reaction whenever my cousins tell me to shave off my goatee. I’m trying grow a beard here.
Brilliant But Lazy - I blame it on my need for efficiency. If the result is not worth the effort then I'm not doing it.
Buffy Speak - I have trouble explaining things to people.
Cloudcuckoolander - Everyone who knows me will unanimously agree on this. I'm just a few steps behind the 11th Doctor in terms of this.
Disorganized Outline Speech - Bad at explaining things.
Does Not Understand Sarcasm - Half the time. The rest of the time I do it on purpose to bug people.
Dual Wielding - I can do this with Shiinai (bamboo blades) now. Pens too.
Epileptic Trees - I’m guessing this applies given the odd rumors I’ve heard about myself over the years.
Everybody Hates Mathematics - Everyone thinks I’m an inversion of this just because I’m good at it. I don’t especially like it any more than I do with other fields of study.
Evil Laugh
Genre Savvy - Combine reading loads of manga and wasting time on TvTropes instead of Wikipedia and you get this.
Go Mad From The Revelation - Subverted. I tinker too much with metaphysics and philosophy in my head and have realized some horribly depressing implications about the nature of humans, their belief systems and reality. I’ve actually learnt to appreciate things more because of this.
Gratuitous Japanese - I have avoided this as much as possible. Sadly, it doesn’t stop other people from doing it.
Grey And Gray Morality - Everything is relative. Nothing is truly absolute.
Hates Being Touched - Hate is a little exaggerated but yeah.
Honor Before Reason - My sense of responsibility outdoes my own personal gain every single damn time. Strangely enough, I’ve pretty much thrown out all traces of shame and guilt out of my emotional system so it’s a matter of pride more than anything else.
I Thought Everyone Could Do That - So much so that I don’t trust my preconception of what’s normal anymore.
Ignored Epiphany - Those revelations of despair that made would make people go mad? Ignoring them doesn’t make them any less true but dwelling on them isn’t exactly fun.
Lack Of Empathy - I have no idea how to console people other than to point out what they can do about their situation.
Magnum Opus Dissonance - Apparently my best poem was one about taking over the world with robot penguins and flying turtles that I wrote on the fly for a class. I was flabbergasted when it won 1st place in the interclass poetry competition that year.
Memetic Badass - My reputation back during my last few years of school.
More Than Meets The Eye - Surprise seems to be my forte. One way or another, I surprise everyone somehow.
Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant - Especially true to my cousins.
No Sympathy - Almost. Just very, very, very little.
Not So Stoic - I don’t like to smile for two reasons: It wastes energy and it looks quite sinister. I’m actually quite a unique individual.
Psycho Supporter - I’m more likely to root for the guys who make things “interesting”.
Psychotic Smirk - Whenever I get amused, it starts looking like this.
Refuge In Audacity - I’ve pulled a number of these to get out trouble. 100% success rate so far.
Reluctant Warrior - I don’t like fighting because it’s pointless and detrimental to all parties involved. However, I am stronger than I look and I wouldn’t mind a fight to see how I fare if I couldn’t avoid it.
Ridiculous Procrastinator - I should really nip this habit in the bud. Sure, I pull it off brilliantly but it’s not a good habit to have.
Right Behind Me - I pull these on a lot of people.
Screw Politeness Im A Senior - I didn’t even bother trying to remember their real names. They still respect me for some reason though.
Secret Identity - Several. I enjoy using them to steer things towards a certain direction.
Serious Business - Food is the only real thing that has a chance of getting to me. I’ve actually felt depressed over not getting a slice of pizza that a teacher treated my class to in time.
She Is Not My Girlfriend - I’m known for not showing any interest in relationships so for some reason I’ve had clear things up whenever a few of my juniors got mistaken as such. All of them happened in my last year of school for some reason.
Sweet Tooth - An outright curse if you ask me.
Talking To Himself - Occasionally.
Talking Your Way Out - My ability to reason and negotiate with people is very useful.
The Nicknamer - Main reason is because I can never remember people’s actual names.
The Reason You Suck Speech - Counterattacked with a particularly brutal one when someone tried to pull of these on me. Not only was it full of holes and disgustingly desperate and delusional, it showed me just how much time I wasted trying to be an actual friend to that person.
There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World - A) Idiots – Those who do stupid things knowing what will come of it and do it anyway. B) Morons – Those who do stupid things thinking that they know what will come of it. I consider myself to be the former.
Think Nothing Of It - Apparently my values are so different from others that I can’t tell the difference between a noble act and a trivial one. My sense of morality might be a little warped by the way.
Took A Level In Badass - Taking it right now. Progressing quite well.
Ubermensch - Going through the motions of being a Nihilist without even knowing that term, I came out of it with an unusually positive view of reality.
Weirdness Coupon - Had and abused this during my school years.
Wise Beyond Their Years - Part of my reputation, even now. It’s weird having people I barely know come up to me for advice. I’ve had an unusually high number of advice seekers concerning their love lives which is just weird.

Movie Review: Resident Evil Afterlife

2010-09-21T20:50:00.002+08:00

Well, I wasn’t expecting myself to go see this movie but there weren’t any other good alternatives this week so me and my friends went off to see this. I personally couldn’t believe that they made yet another sequel to the horribly decayed adaptation of the Resident Evil games. Especially after the previous movie where someone came up with the brilliant idea of throwing psychokinesis into the mix. Seriously, espers in a movie based on a game about surviving a horde of zombies by blasting your way out of trouble with knives, pistols, rifles, grenades, sometimes a laser and finally a rocket launcher.

Thankfully, they realized the error of their ways and took care of that little snag right at the beginning of the movie with a sequence that would not look out of place in the Matrix trilogy or Akira. What follows after is a plot that I can actually admit to living up to the games’ premise though that too comes with a mixed bag of sentiments from me. Basically the main character finds herself on a search for other survivors as well as the mysterious sanctuary, Arcadia. She flies in where the survivors from the previous movie were supposed to have landed but discovers the location to be a desolate graveyard of planes. Finding a lone survivor suffering from amnesia, she makes way with her new companion in tow for Los Angeles where they find another group of survivors holed up in a prison complex as well as the mysterious Arcadia. Going through the usual survivor horror movie clichés, we are shown scenes of some of the survivors making it to Arcadia only to discover that Arcadia is not the sanctuary that it made itself out to be. They then have a last boss fight there, one that’s surprisingly faithful to the source material, after which the movie ends on a cliffhanger that just made me groan. There’s also a bonus scene halfway through the credits that made me wonder if they actually expected it to make us want to see the next movie even more.

As you can probably tell, I don’t think very highly of this movie and its series overall. The characters barely have any personality at all and are all just trying way too hard to be cool. The main character in particular is very guilty of this. She kills zombies on a daily basis and is a total badass by anyone’s standards but she walks and talks like a noob trying to be all that. Her actor really isn’t very convincing at this role. Even the Redfield siblings looked more badass than she did when she wasn’t performing stunts. The black guy had a similar vibe to him but I think the trope subversion he pulled off was amusing enough to like him. Not only was he the last of the cannon fodder to get taken away by the zombies, he was the only one to survive and show in a scene near the end.

I do have to admit one thing though, I was very impressed with the special effects they put into the movie. My eyes just popped wide open when the energy explosion just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Then the bubble imploded and I let out a low a whistle as it left gigantic hole in the middle of an apocalyptic Tokyo. The slow motion sequences they littered about throughout the entire movie however did not. Not only did they fail to make the action scenes any more exciting or enjoyable, they actually made them look completely silly.

All in all, I’d have to say it was a halfway decent movie. However, if you’re not like me and you don’t analyse the movie as you watch it then you can take the previous sentence and leave out the halfway part. For those of you who are still on the fence about seeing this movie, feel free to check out the list of holes I’ve found in the movie that I’ve hidden in the spoiler box below. Lastly, don’t expect a rocket launcher in the last boss fight. Apparently it was so faithful to the RE5’s last boss battle that I’m still doubting what my said about it not finishing up with a rocket launcher like in the prequels.

List of Holes

Why does Umbrella keep two snipers on guard outside of a nigh impenetrable underground zombie proof fortress?
If all the clones could do that super psycho blast then why didn’t they?
Alice is human so why does she live through the helicopter crash?
How did Claire survive brainwashed and drugged up for six months?
Why is there a prison in the middle of the city? Maybe not exactly in just the movie but who’d put a prison in the middle of a city in real life?
Why could that Mexican guy move those big wood boxes filled with stuff in them but struggle so much with an upside down drum barrel that looked empty?
Why did most of the survivors look nice and clean when Alice met them?
Guns don’t fire properly when wet. They shouldn’t have worked after having been in the water so long.
Why did Chris and Alice only take small arms with them out of the armory? There were plenty of automatic rifles and grenades in there and he had an army backpack that should have had enough space to store a couple at least.
Alice detonated a portion of the building she bungied off. Judging from the camera angle, the other end of the bungee cord should have gone with it.
Why didn’t Alice just go with the rest down the elevator? The zombies couldn’t have followed them down the elevator shaft even if she wasn’t gunning them down outside.
Those coin-powered sawed-off shotguns couldn’t have fit that many coins in there. They shouldn’t have fired like that either.
Bennet crashed the plane in a nose dive and got out pretty much unscathed. The deck was level enough for him to at least try and make a safer landing.
Where exactly did the people in the bloodied capsules go? There was a fresh trail of blood on the floor. For that matter, why didn’t any of the heroes see a bright crimson trail of red in an entirely white hall if they didn’t go missing in front of them?
Why don’t the heroes suspect the possibility of the people they rescued being zombies after seeing the bloodied capsules?
Why didn’t any blood ooze out from under Wesker when Chris and Claire were shooting him?
Wesker’s clothes are repaired and clean in his final scene. He was just shot repeatedly in the chest just minutes before.
Why would umbrella make a self destruct mechanism you can DETACH from the place to be exploded?

Manga Review: Break Hands

2010-09-19T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Break Hands
Author: Sasaki Minoru
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Fantasy
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This takes place in a world where these mysterious stones called star rocks exist and by embedding them into their bodies, people can gain abilities unique to each individual. One such individual is the main character of the story, a promising young militant whose brother and father are of higher standing in their military force. One day however, the older brother he looked up betrays their country, kills their father and kidnaps the princess. After going through all the chaos that his brother and his allies had caused, he embarks on a mission to chase down his brother and rescue the princess carrying with him the intention of avenging his father death. It started off pretty well, establishing the characters and plot quite well but then, for some reason, it rushed off to its end with an ending that just turned everything on its head. Characterization, plot, premise, pacing. All of that got screwed over by the introduction of a never mentioned villain that happens to be the cause of everything that happened since the beginning of the series, bringing along a sudden power up worthy of Kubo Tite with her. I’m guessing the manga got axed for one reason or another and that’s real shame since the manga probably wasn’t even anywhere near its halfway point. Not sure if I should recommend this otherwise good series because of the horribly disappointing ending.

Manga Review: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

2010-09-15T17:37:00.005+08:00

Title: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Author: Hiraska Yomi, Itachi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Seinen
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the manga adaptation of a series of light novels by the same name. The story is about a group of individuals who are socially awkward in some way and are incapable of making friends for one or another. Because of this, they form a new club in their school to help them practice and develop their friendship forming skills. It starts off with a chapter set somewhere in the middle of the story to show off what we can expect to see in future chapters and from that it’s easy to see what sort of hilarity we can expect from this series. The characters are all very interesting and have very entertaining dynamics in their relationship and it’s quite easy to understand why exactly they need such a club. The comedic prospects aside, there also seems to be quite a good deal of story to be told and character development to be had here. The fact that the novels already have a manga adaptation suggests that it’ll be worth a read once they get to those points so it’s got me looking forwards to what they’ve got in store for the future. It takes quite a good storyteller to make a story about high school teenagers worth reading so I’ve got high hopes for this one. I’m also hoping that a certain someone in the club is skewed enough to consider Takamichi Nanoha’s method of befriending people as a viable method of making friends.

P.s. Anyone else notice that the art style looks a lot like Kato Hiruaki’s signature style? What’s the deal with that?

Manga Review: Until Death Do Us Part

2010-09-14T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Until Death Do Us Part
Author: Double-S, Takashige Hiroge
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is the story of a blind swordsman with prodigious talent at swordplay and the little girl girl who asks him to protect her till death. The little girl is a precog and sees her future lies in the hands of her violent protector. Together they face the hordes of mercenaries sent after them with the help of the underground anti-crime network that the swordman works for as the girl waits for the day that she saw in her visions, the day she gets married to the man. This is quite an interesting series with a good set of characters and an intriguing premise. The action scenes are just incredible and are refreshing to watch, especially if you’re a fan of swordfights. I do have to complain about the pacing though, there’s a lot to look forward to with the setup they’ve got here but the manga goes at as if it were a weekly series when it’s really a monthly publication. Moreover, you don’t really get the feeling that very much time has passed in the manga. There’s also the fact that the character development takes a backseat to the action despite how much better the series could stand to be if it put a little bit more focus on the characters growth, particularly the girl, and their relationships in subtler ways instead of giving shallow but dramatic actions. All in all, it’s a pretty good manga but you’re going to ask yourself “That’s all so far?” when you hit the latest chapter.

Manga Review: G Senjou Heavens Door

2010-09-13T17:37:00.000+08:00

Title: G Senjou Heavens Door
Author: Nihonbashi Yoko
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: S
Characters: S+
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This story revolves around two troubled teens who have issues with their families and have manga to thank for that. One is a strongly rebellious loner who bears much animosity towards his father, a celebrated mangaka, and looks down upon the medium because of what it’s done to his family while the other is almost completely devoid of any personality but is surrounded by many who care for him and possesses astonishing talent with drawing manga. Their story kicks off when the two get together to draw manga for a contest so they can both get the prized money they’re after. I quite amazed how much this series got done with just three volumes worth of pages. It started off very boldly, risking alienating its readers too much with its unlikeable protagonist, unique art style, mature scenes and its almost ridiculous story, but behind all these offputting factors lies a gold mine of plot and character development that really comes together as you go further into the story. One could think of it as a more cynical version of Bakuman(though this actually started and finished way before that did), a version that focuses more on the main characters and uses the manga plot to drive their personal growth instead of having it take the stage and manages to deliver a very engaging reading experience that never goes stale. I’d even have to say the mangaka is actually on the same supposed level as her characters here. If you think you can bear with the annoying bits of the story for an entire volume then I would suggest you pick this up for reading and keep on with it till the surprisingly well done end.

Manga Review: Bartender

2010-09-12T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Bartender
Author: Joh Araki, Nagamoto Kenji
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a young bartender who has just returned to Japan after training in the ways of the Bartending profession and has brought back with him a title bestowed upon one who has reached the heights of tending the bar, “Glass of the Gods”. It went something like that and I found it to be a pleasant if monotonous read. It doesn’t really seem to have much of a story and the chapters follow a very repetitive formula where the guy usually delivers some sort of epiphany unto his customers through the cocktails he mixes. You’ll pick up some interesting trivia about cocktails but that’s all you’ll really take from this series. I can’t really give any other reason to add this to your reading list so go and check it out if you’re interested in the world of serving liquor.

Halyosy Songs

2010-09-11T18:26:00.005+08:00

Nico Nico Douga has all sorts of videos on their site and thanks to their daily rankings system, you can tell when a newly uploaded video is if any good by the number of views and how high they're up on the top 100 vids. That's how I've come to notice these guys and their work they do, mostly covers of vocaloid songs. Take a listen to these and enjoy their musical talent.

『般若心経 -R&B-』　歌ってみたアレンジ　
Their newest work, interesting beat

Melt

Black Rock Shooter

When Love Ends for the First Time

Just Be Friends

Hello Windows
Very soothing melody here

Sakura no Ame

Double Lariat

Fire Flower

The Convenience Store

「星間飛行」をくしゃみして

Genesis of Aquarion

When I Get Home My Wife Always Pretends to be Dead
A silly little song that also happens to be quite heartwarming. My personal favorite.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2010!!

2010-09-10T00:00:00.003+08:00

Puasa's over and I can finally get back to my normal sleep cycles, the ones I so dearly missed. It was over before I knew it and I ended up not going to the stalls at the stadium as much as the past few years. Stall selections wasn't quite as interesting as last year's but it nice all the same. Can't believe Raya came early this year either. They say it's always been late even since before I was born but it actually came early when I completely expected otherwise. At any rate, a "Selamat Hari Raya!!" to all who celebrate it!

Manga Review: Eden – It’s an Endless World

2010-09-08T17:37:00.001+08:00

Title: Eden – It’s an Endless World
Author: Hiroki Endo
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: C
Action: B

Impression: This manga is set in the future where a mysterious virus has wiped out a major percentage of the world’s population and human civilization is slowly recovering from the first outbreak. The story follows various characters throughout the many years that take place over the series and the strange new world that has come out of the disastrous epidemic that struck the Earth. The story is definitely engaging and the overarching plot is certainly interesting but I hate how this guy treats his characters. I’m not talking about the high body count, the dozens of kick the dog moments, the ridiculous amount of squick thanks to the drugs, sex and sci-fi tech. No, those actually made the story more enjoyable. It was the way he keeps switching the focus from one character to another for entire arcs and later completely forgetting about them and their development later. It’s like the author was a total schizophrenic when it came to which characters were actually important. The most jarring instance of this was having the most prominently featured and most developed character in the series set up for his role in the climax only for him to have done basically nothing and other characters who didn’t even have half as much screen time as him taking charge of the plot. While the characters who are involved in the finale do have more significance towards the setting at that point, it still doesn’t help the fact the feeling that you just wasted your time reading about half the stuff in the series. Then there’s the guy’s sense of humor. This is a seinen series set in a crapsack of the world portrayed with a very realistic and gritty art style and yet he still does lame, badly-timed jokes using art you’d expect to see in a comedy manga. Also, what exactly was the point of this series? Life goes on? Sorry, but that’s a terribly weak message. I’m not even sure if that even qualifies as one, more of a fact if you ask me.

In-Depth Manga Review: The Lucifer & Biscuit Hammer

2010-09-05T17:37:00.004+08:00

Title: The Lucifer & Biscuit Hammer
Alternative Titles: Hoshi no Samidare, 惑星のさみだれ
Author: Mizukami Satoshi
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Length: 10 Volumes, 65 Chapters
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance

Synopsis

This is the story of Amamiya Yuuhi and the year his usual routine was disrupted by a truly unprecedented turn of events best explained by the following monologue:

“One morning when I woke up, there was a lizard in my room. We stared at each other and the first to break the silence, was him.”

He has just been pulled into a, as described by another talking animal, truly outrageous yet mundane heroic epic where they as the Beast Knights have to fight monstrous constructs made of Earth created by the mage Animus who literally has the power to smash the planet into bits and pieces. The lizard knight has come to him to recruit him in a war that will determine the fate of the planet and he has been granted psychic powers as well a wish in exchange for his participation in the conflict that he could very well lose his life over. Unfortunately for Noi the lizard, Yuuhi is more inclined to see the world destroyed than to fight for its continued existence as he utterly loathes everything in it. The nihilist soon experiences the conflict firsthand, almost having been killed only to get saved by Asahina Samidare, the monstrously strong princess that he was told to protect. Even after his close encounter with death, he still refuses to take part until the high school girl that saved him just the day before comes to him shows him the huge ass hammer in the sky that threatens to smash their planet to bits. She then makes a show of trust by letting herself fall off from building so that Yuuhi would save her before going splat on the ground. Having gained his attention, she announces to him she’ll never let the Biscuit Hammer destroy the Earth. Why? Because she’s going to destroy the Earth, with her own fists. That’s when Yuuhi pledges his unwavering loyalty to her. That’s how this tale of the Earth’s destruction begins.

Art: A
At first the art doesn’t look very impressive and looks substandard but it grows into a uniquely expressive style that perfectly captures the ambience of the scene as well as the emotions and thoughts of the characters. This takes a real while but once the author finally settles into it, even the fight scenes start to look awesome. By that, I don’t mean that the attacks start looking as complex as the ones you’d see on Bleach or Naruto. Nope, the attacks stay relatively simplistic in comparison to most shonen series. It’s more towards where the emphasis lies in those scenes. Instead of putting the focus on the attack itself, he likes to concentrate on the bits that lead up to and follow after the attack itself. This technique of his captures those “Oh, crap!” and “Hell Yeah!!” moments so perfectly that it’s very easy to overlook how plain the attacks look.

Originality: S+
This is about a group of people who have been granted psychic powers to fight alongside invisible talking animals who are lead by a princess to fight the mage and his golems so that his planet destroying superweapon of a biscuit hammer won’t smash the Earth to bits with a hidden third faction within the group of protectors that secretly plan to destroy the Earth themselves once the mage has been vanquished. Interesting, no? And that’s just the very tip of the iceberg by the way. Time travel, reincarnation and magical girls get thrown into the mix too. Besides very the quirky set-up Mizukami-sensei came up for the familiar save the world plot, this particular author also understands what expectations that his audience will have for him and how he can use those expectations to keep his readers surprised, amused and excited for more with every chapter. What you get is a work that superficially resembles standard shonen fare only to be filled with just so many subversions, aversions and inversions of the usual tropes that you can never tell how the following chapter will turn out. I myself have failed miserably in trying to predict what he’s got in store for us, even right up to the final chapter.

Story: S+
Mizukami-sensei is no doubt a master storyteller. The tale he spun here has so many threads and so many layers woven so cleanly and tightly into it that he must have had this entire tapestry laid out in front of him even before it began serialization. Right from the very first few chapters, you get these small insignificant details that hint at things that only get revealed dozens of chapters later. Some of these brilliantly subtle bits of foreshadowing get played off as one time jokes only to come back in full force in a totally different context with entirely new implications. These hints are pretty easy to remember and you just can’t help but be impressed at how insignificant he made them seem. The romance between Yuuhi and Samidare may seem have been muted for much of the series but it builds itself up bit by bit in small but very significant segments that focus more on the trust shared between them rather any actual signs of infatuation. This all pays off when we finally get to see what they meant to her and how much she loves Yuuhi in the finale that it finishes off the climax of the series with an incredibly moving moment between the two of them. The last ten chapters of this series can only be described as the most satisfying finale ever. Not only did we get to see everyone go all out in the last battle, every last loose end gets tied up nicely and we’re treated to an epilogue that satisfies like no other. I’d even go as far as to say that no one will want to write any “improved” fanfics of this simply because the story was just that good.

Characters: S+
The story features a huge cast of unique characters ranging from the nihilistic college student Amamiya Yuuhi to the incredibly laidback and affable Animus. Though they themselves have some eccentric qualities to them, the knights get portrayed realistically enough as normal people who just happened to get dragged into an unbelievable situation. In fact, with the exception of three especially quirky knights, everyone would be even blander than the side characters had they not become knights. We get a total of twelve knights, not all lasting till the final showdown and they all get enough attention to show how they’ve grown as people throughout this series. Hardly anybody stays the same person they were when they were first introduced into the series and their individual motivations for participating in the war get fleshed out and developed in brilliantly subtle ways. The characters grow on you as discover how “human” they’re made out to be, a recurring theme in this series. Even “growing up” was another motif explored in this series and it wouldn’t have worked out as well had any of the main characters stayed the same. The clearest evidence of this is the main character himself as goes from being a weak-ass nihilist with a deep-seated grudge against the world to an outright hero, the one that Noi was looking for as his partner.

Humor: A
Mizukami-sensei has a pretty goofy sense of humor. The jokes he throws into this series never reach ROFLMAO levels but are still pretty funny. It’s more in the range of “Huh… wait, what?” and “What the hell is he doing?”. Much of the humor is derived from the characters themselves. It could be an odd quirk, a surprising skill or even an unusual way of handling things. Most of the time, the jokes involve the expectations we have for how things should be going and more often than not add to whatever character is responsible for the chuckle you let out. The goofiness of the series, as lighthearted as it may be, never gets in the way of whatever scene is taking place regardless of how intense it’s supposed to be. They fit in there so naturally that it keeps things from getting too cheesy or overdone and occasionally strengthens the power behind the scene itself.

Action: A
I give this a B for its first half, an S overall for its second half and an honest to goodness S+ for its finale. The first half takes its time to build up the premise as well the characters while also moving the conflict well along enough that the slice of life scenes blend nicely with fight scenes, both feeling equally relevant to the story. Things start shifting into higher gears once the mage and the princess, the driving forces of the whole conflict, show up as that’s when everything that’s been established in the story by that point start to develop and really come into play. The fights start escalating as both the knights and the golems become more and more formidable with every battle demonstrating the ingenuity of their respective tactics making for some very entertaining fights. Even the character-centric scenes become more engaging as they get tied in even more with the war they’re fighting. This trend continues on even into the showdown as both sides take their fighting power to heights never seen before in the series and every bit of build up pays off in the most satisfying of ways. To use an analogy, the story is like a snowball going down a hill, it starts off small and gets bigger and bigger as it goes down and at the very end you get to see just how much snow was in there.

Final Impression
This series started out quirky, developed brilliantly and ended magnificently. Not even one single chapter ever feels wasted. At this present time, you will NOT find five manga series that you can even begin to consider as works superior to this one. For most, they’d be hard-pressed to find even one. I have absolutely zero gripes about this story and am thoroughly satisfied with its end. It is a sad thing to see that this still remains so horribly obscure and underrated as it is when it truly deserves the popularity garnered by the likes of Bleach and Naruto. The fact of the matter is that this guy never fails to deliver the scenes as emotionally powerful as he meant them to be and possibly even more than he did. This series will make you laugh, cry, cheer out loud and even feel all warm and happy inside, all when you least expect yourself to. Nothing short of a great series is capable of that. Hopefully GAINAX is smart enough to pick this up for an anime adaptation soon and that it at the very least gets picked up for an official English translation by a credible company. This story is without a shadow of a doubt, a true Masterpiece.

More Icons

2010-09-04T18:18:00.008+08:00

Adding some new icons for a sort-of new thing I'll be doing tomorrow as well replacing some of the older icons with some better looking ones. Been waiting for a certain series to end before I start with what I'll be posting up tomorrow.

Manga Review: Akiba Romance

2010-09-03T17:37:00.007+08:00

Title: Akiba Romance
Author: Kijima Renga
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: There seems to have been a spike in manga featuring a school idol/star/celeb secretly being an otaku, or in this case a fujoshi as the protagonist is a girl. This girl wants to give up her otaku ways because of something a fictional character in a manga she reads says. To her, said fictional character is what Edward is to a Twilight fangirl so she commits herself to reforming from the behavior that her fictional crush frowns upon… I lament upon the fact there are actually people who become so enamored with fictional characters that they delude themselves into thinking that they’re somehow real. It’s played for laughs to get the story rolling but I can’t help but feel that to be a downright horrible plot device. Putting my disdain for such irrationality aside, the manga falls into the pattern where girl’s secret gets found out by guy she’s never talked to and begins acting all tsundere towards the guy even though he’s doing nothing to thwart her double life. That’s getting to be a cliché now but I’m not sure if TvTropes has a term for it yet and this mucks around in the first few chapters in the most predictable of ways. However, I still find it to be a decent love comedy manga despite its predictability. That’s probably partly due the fact that the main character blows everything so out of proportion that it makes her borderline delusional views amusing to watch.

Manga Review: Shiki

2010-08-31T17:37:00.003+08:00

Title: Shiki
Author: Ono Fuyumi, Fujisaki Ryuu
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Supernatural, Mystery, Horror
Art: S+
Originality: A
Story: S
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: S

Impression: This is a manga adaptation of novel about a village that’s way out in the country that suddenly finds itself plagued by a series of mysterious deaths that pop up at a daily rate. The story focuses on how the villagers are affected by these deaths and their attempts at overcoming the unusual situation they find themselves in. Though only a select few in the village actually manage to grasp at the truth behind these deaths, most of the villagers already suspect the strange new reclusive flamboyant family that has taken up residence in the equally ostentatious western styled castle-mansion found at the top of a hill in their area. Of course they’re right on the money about this as they really are… vampires! I really don’t consider that to be much of a spoiler though, the hints are far too obvious for anyone miss this so anyone who didn’t see that coming at all should be very ashamed of themselves. As the story itself encompasses the villagers rather than any one character, you don’t really see anyone that truly qualifies as the main character. There are a few characters that are more prominent than others in the manga but that’s mostly because their personalities and actions make them stand out amongst the huge cast of colorful personalities featured inside. This allows for an intensely gripping storytelling style that’s imbued with plenty of suspense and a dark ominous atmosphere of mystery(despite how obvious it is what’s really going on). It plays out like a quiet horror movie that you just can’t help but keep on watching. You just get pulled into the whole thing and can’t stop yourself from until you get to the very end. I absolutely recommend this even if you aren’t into any of the genres it falls under but not until you can get your hands on everything from start to finish as the suspense just eats away at your sanity.

Manga Review: Hiiragi Shougakkou Renai Kurabu

2010-08-30T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Hiiragi Shougakkou Renai Kurabu
Author: Azuma Yuki
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Psychological, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is an interesting series about elementary school girls who are curious about the instances of romance they see around the in their lives. One especially curious little girl decides to take the initiative with her love life and sets out to establish a love research club in preparation for her future encounters with romance so she’ll know what to do when she runs into the. It’s basically Kodomo no Jikan, the safe for work version, and it comes with better drawings too. Don’t let the clean crisp cutesy drawing style fool you though, the girls in this manga are quite perceptive for their age and they bring up some of the more complex workings that come with romances. What’s more, it doesn’t just delve into the lighter side of such relationships but also the darker aspects of human courtship and mating. This is not the seemingly innocent slice of life manga that the first few chapters would have you believe with the unassuming antics the characters get up to but is actually a series that focuses on the perception of love that kids today are liable to take on. It’s got some very well thought up characters and a surprising level of depth that makes it quite the fascinating read.

Manga Review: Tenbin wa Hana to Asobu

2010-08-28T17:37:00.004+08:00

Title: Tenbin wa Hana to Asobu
Author: Unohana Tsukasa
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Yuri, Gender Bender
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This story takes place in an all girls academy that this bubbly and energetic airhead transfers into and centers on the budding relationship between her and another girl who is outwardly graceful and soft-spoken in the eyes of their peers. Their involvement with one another kicks off when the transfer student comes across the other girl in the middle of drinking blood straight from the neck of their school doctor. Not only does she immediately agree to go along with their request keep things under wraps, she even goes as far to offer her help with the other girl’s vampire syndrome whenever she needs it. As with most Yuri series, the two main characters share a lot of fluff scenes with one another but it should be noted that only one of them really seems to be concerned with the intimacy of their actions while the other plays up her airheadedness adding a bit more charm to their relationship. I would also like to add that the transferee does have some traits of Mary Sue considering how the plot is set up but I also find that it doesn’t really take away any enjoyment from a lighthearted series like this. It’s not what I’d call a high quality Yuri manga but it does make for a decent read so it’s worth checking out. As for why this series falls under the gender bender category, it’s because the vampire syndrome mentioned in this story works by having the affected person living as neither male nor female until they reach the age of 18 and turn into the gender they’ve drunk more blood from. I am fairly certain that’s a fictional condition by the way since I have enough confidence in my knowledge of biology to say that hormones don’t work that way.

Manga Review: B Gata H Kei

2010-08-27T17:37:00.005+08:00

Title: B Gata H Kei
Author: Yoko Sanri
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Ecchi, Slice of Life
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is a 4koma manga about a perverted high school beauty whose aim is to get 100 fuck buddies while she’s there. Her schoolmates consider her to be one of those girls who has her way with guys and can get laid whenever she wants to but in reality she’s an inexperienced virgin who is overly(an understatement) eager when it comes to any topic of the sexual nature and despite having such an abnormal obsession about such matters, she’s too “maidenly” to follow through on her attempts and keeps messing things up with the average Joe she’s interested in. A refreshingly hilarious and over the top series about a girl who actively tries to land in her catch only to keep having something get in the way of actually fornicating with the guy who actually holds mutual feelings towards her. Though there are some rather risqué topics and events in the manga, the drawings themselves are rarely ever explicit and the erotic content always gets played for laugh making this surprisingly safe for work. It’s basically on the same level as one of those dirty jokes you throw around with your colleagues though I can’t really say the same of the anime which shows the scenes in better detail and has the main character voiced by the super talented Tamura Yukari. Still, manga or anime, B Gata H Kei is a great series to follow.

Manga Review: Zennou no Noa: The World of Lost Memories

2010-08-25T17:37:00.002+08:00

Title: Zennou no Noa: The World of Memories
Author: Ono Youichiro
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Two years prior to when the story takes place, a mysterious incident occurred in Tokyo that caused over a million of its residents to suffer amnesia and lose memories of who they were before the entire event. Those who have lost their memories because of such are now living in an underground city beneath Tokyo called the Tokyo Geofront and are called KID’z due to the childlike nature of the majority of the victim. One such victim is the protagonist, Ikurumi Noa who stands out among them for having an abnormally high level of intelligence even after losing his memories. One day he finds himself involved in a chase after a suspected arrest only to find out a bombshell of a revelation about his former self – he was the one that caused the memory loss incident. Once that happens, we learn more and more about the character and how he’s not all that he appears to be even before he learnt of this vital piece of information. Being an expy of Lelouch, he goes and outsmarts the officials with over the top and unbelievably shrewd plans using his wits and gadgets to come out on top. It’s not just him, the entire setting and flow feels like it was ripped straight out of the second season of the hit series and retooled as another story. I basically see this as a cross between Code Geass and Flashforward with its main character being Lelouch without his Geass and the Blackout-like incident that started it all. Another similarity it shares with the American tv series is the fact it seems to have been cut short at a paltry three volumes despite having a formula that could easily make it a very popular series with a fanbase that would have shared many members with that of the Code Geass fanbase had it gone further. Definitely worth checking out if you liked either of those series.