Webcomics Review: Girl Genius

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I've posted so I decided that it was finally time to dust off the keyboard and see what I could come up with. Several weeks ago a friend of mine wrote a review of a webcomic that I introduced her to (read her blog at A Guide to L-Space) and I jokingly told her that I should write down my own two cents to post at the same time. It obviously didn't happen like that, but she's needled me a couple of times since then, so I decided to finally get off my ass and follow through on my word. And so this week, I give you Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio.

Now, I know a lot of people may cringe a little when they hear the term "webcomics" and I have to admit that its a reasonable response. The sheer volume and breadth of webcomics available on the internet is kind of staggering and honestly, a lot of it isn't very good. There are really two ways you can find the gems amongst the rubble: 1) Go through it yourself and follow links from site to site and reading a little bit of everything you come across; 2) Have someone else do 1) and let them suggest the good ones to you. I stumbled across Girl Genius following method 1) and I can honestly say that it's probably one of the best webcomics that I currently follow and one of the most professional looking.

Girl Genius is set in an alternate Victorian-esque Europe (called Europa in the series) that is dominated by all sorts of steam and gear driven contraptions: flying machines, automatons, lightning guns, Frankenstein-esque beings called "constructs", etc. I came across the word "steampunk" for the first time not long after starting to read GG and I think it's a word that describes the setting fairly well, although it is less dystopian than the word would suggest. These wondrous and terrible technological marvels are the work of "Sparks", individuals born with a preternatural (or even supernatural?) affinity for inventing, tinkering and the drive to act on it. Basically, they're mad scientists. Years before the start of the story Bill and Barry Heterodyne became living legends for being champions of good and right, forging peace across war-torn Europa, and fighting the forces of The Other, a particularly powerful and evil spark, before mysteriously disappearing along with their foe at the culmination of the war. Agatha Clay is a young student in Beetleburg who seems to have an anti-knack for inventing (nearly all of her stuff malfunctions) who hides a secret that she isn't even aware of. This secret will propel her into a life of danger and high adventure.

Now to be honest, this series had caught my attention at "mad scientists" and it certainly plays up that aspect when it gets the chance. Sparks have laboratories filled with large, mysterious machines, large orbs that arc lightning, and giant switches. Everything is wonderfully over the top, but its done with enough charm that everything seems natural within the context of the universe that the Foglio's have created, and that's thanks largely to the artwork. The Foglio's have been involved with scifi/fantasy work for years and their art has a distinctive flair to it. Unfortunately I'm not able to adquately describe what makes their artwork unique, so I'll just add a picture of the main character Agatha here to just show you.














The first volume's worth of pages (GG started life as an indie-published comic) are done in black and white, but transitions to full color starting with volume 2 and it benefits immeasurably from the switch. Suddenly the art seems to become much more detailed and the vibrancy of the colors helps to fully flesh out the world that they have created.

Now normally, I would write extensively in my reviews about the plotline of the series or the characters and what I do and do not like. In the interest of spoiling as little as possible, I will try to keep this section unusually brief, and instead only touch on a couple of things. The plot is a mix of comedy, a hint of romance, and a generous portion of high adventure, with a healthy mixing of intrigue involving Agatha's past and how it affects her future. The characters are all complex and well developed where it would have been easy to leave them as simple genre stereotypes. My friend listed as a drawback that the occasional descent into high drama of some of the mad scientists comes acrossed as occasionally "forced" or "bipolar or hyperdramatic", but I counter that it is SUPPOSED to be hyperdramatic. The background of the panel fades to red, the word bubbles and text become bolded and distorted, and the lighting changes to seemingly illuminate the face from below. The popular conception of mad scientists is that they give themselves to these highly dramatic moments just because, and in several instances this happens in the comic either because the character is extremely emotionally agitated, or deliberately going for this effect to terrify some stooge. It is the result of the authors paying homage to their inspiration and source material.

In short, if you have any positive disposition toward good, old-fashioned adventure and fantasy tales, you owe it to yourself to check out Girl Genius. You can read the comic here, at: www.girlgenius.com

Pumpkin Cookies: Nuts vs. Raisins

Time for another off-topic non-post. The other day, I was chatting with someone and they asked me whether pumpkin cookies were better with raisins or nuts. I have heard the evidence for both sides and have decided that, if only one is an option, it ought to be raisins. Case closed.

On an unrelated note, game companies need to better plan their release schedules. Half the year is practically starved for good game releases, and then there's a glut of them from about September to December. Who has enough money or time to play all of those games at once?

Anime Review: Devil Hunter Yohko OAV 1

When I was walking through the anime section at Best Buy the other day, I saw a DVD collection for a series I'd first heard of about nearly 10 years ago: Devil Hunter Yohko. Now back when I first started watching anime, about the only access I had to new series was my local Blockbuster or Hastings anime rental section. I watched a smattering of a lot of different series (the stores never had all of any one thing) and for whatever reason, Devil Hunter Yohko was one I'd always meant to watch but never quite got around to. So when I saw the entire 6 episode OAV collection for just $15, I decided "Eh, why not?" Although every once in awhile you can find good deals in the bargain bin, it's been my general experience that most titles are there for a very good reason and unfortunately, Devil Hunter Yohko seems to be no exception.

Yohko Mano is a young girl on the verge of her 16th birthday and she soon discovers that she is the 108th generation of Devil Hunters in her family. The demons know this too and so before she fully awakens to her powers, they are going to try and put an end to her and the Devil Hunter line. Paraphrased, that's basically how the back of the DVD describes the series and technically its correct. What the back of the DVD doesn't tell you is that at several points the show plays out more like some kind of badly written softcore pornography than anything else. Fan service in a show is one thing, and I've certainly gotten on a series case for focusing on it too much, but the stuff here is just ridiculous: case in point, there's a scene where one of Yohko's classmates is invited to the principal's office (a woman with a whip and a commented S&M interest) where she begins to just strip in front of him and seduce him. Shortly afterward this same classmate, suddenly super suave, takes Yohko to a love hotel and begins to strip and fondle her and almost rapes her (she's hypnotized), until her grandomther bursts through the skylight on a motorcycle. Oh, and apparently Yohko's mom is a whore who thinks that her daughter is behind the curve for being a virgin at 16 and tells her daughter to give it up to the first guy who really strikes her fancy. I'm pretty tolerant of fictional characters and their lifestyles but this was just a little much for me. The main character Yohko is pretty bland and is probably best described as a more risque Sailor Moon, down to a transformation sequence that shows bare nipples. The pacing is pretty bad too with events kind of disjointedly happening one after the other with no real bridges connecting them

In addition to the poor plotting and writing, the animation and music are both substandard as well. The soundtrack is composed entirely of synthesizer riffs that are characteristic of anime made before the mid 90's and is universally bland throughout the episode. Animation is stiff and jerky with bland late 80's style character designs and while it may have only been mediocre to passable when it came out, time has not been to kind to it.

I could keep on trashing it, but I think enough is enough. Now I won't pretend that all the series that I watch and enjoy are "good"; there are more than a couple that I enjoy despite being demonstrably "bad" in one or more areas, but they always have some charm or quirk that appeals to me in some odd way. Devil Hunter Yohko does not. Being an OVA, there are different composers and directors and writers listed for each episode so its entirely possible that some of the others on the disc aren't so bad. I'd be hard pressed though following the first OVA to muster up enough enthusiasm to try and find out though.

Content-less update, or, "I'm not dead yet!"

Greetings all. Spent a good portion of this morning fiddling with the template and layout of the blog, and I think I'm fairly satisfied with the result, although comments are always welcome. As the title indicates, I don't have anything content worthy for you today, just wanted to check in and confirm that I'm still around. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have some new content up. Anywho, hope you all had a happy Halloween.

Anime Review: "World Destruction"

I actually finished watching "World Destruction" several weeks ago, but I wanted some time to sit and think on it before I actually posted my impressions of this series. Before anything else, I should start with a little bit of background on the series. "World Destruction" is actually based on a new RPG Sega developed for the Nintendo DS by the same name and they commissioned Production I.G., who had done work during the game's development, to create a 13 episode series to air on TV prior to the game's release to help build up buzz for the game. In addition to the anime adaptation, I believe there was a manga spinoff running around the same time as well and the game itself came out in mid September of this year. In that watching a couple episodes of the anime and hearing about the game made me curious to dig up more information, I suppose the anime succeeded in its publicity goal (and unfortunately as interested as I am, the game has no current American release date), but how does it succeed as an entertaining, stand alone show?

The basic premise of the show (and the game) is that contrary to the standard RPG trope of a ragtag group fighting to save the world from destruction and doom, the protagonists of "World Destruction" seek to cause that same destruction and doom. In this alternate world, the oceans are apparently made of sand, and humans live as a race of second class citizens under the firm boot of the beastmen, a catch all term for a variety of anthropomorphic animal species. Named the World Destruction Committee, Kyrie Ilnis, Morte Asherah, and Toppi the mini-bear travel across the world, eluding the World Savior Committee and trying to unlock the secrets of the Destruct Code, which has the power to turn the world into an ocean of sand. Although really, Morte is the only one who really wants to destroy the world. Kyrie starts the series as a human masquerading as a beastman by wearing cat ears so that he can make a decent living as a waiter. Toppi, who looks like a yellow teddy bear with a bandana and an eyepatch, is a Hero, travelling the country in his quest to find wrongs to right. Through a series of events the three kind of get thrown together, Toppi and Kyrie are labeled as Morte's accomplices and must flee as fugitives, and Kyrie is implied to have some kind of connection with the Destruct Code.

So ends the summary, now begins the critique. The initial premise of having the "heroes" be the bad guys trying to destroy the world doesn't add as much variety as you might think. The show is highly formulaic and despite their "evil" goal, the group finds someone in trouble and helps them, human and beastman, before being chased off again by the World Savior Committee. In fact, nearly every episode follows this pattern and very little effort or time is spent explaining the Destruct Code or the characters. Morte is the driving force behind the group, but all you find out is that her brother died fighting against the beastmen, and now she just wants to destroy the world in her grief. But even that doesn't come up often; mostly, she's just kind of surly. Kyrie is absolutely useless, his most valuable contribution seems to be providing cat ears for Morte so they can enter town with less notice since his only skill in combat seems to be running away. If you wanted to get the "story" of the series, you only would really need to watch the first one or two episodes, and then the last three or so. Everything else is just filler. And even then, the big plot reveal of the series is fairly self evident to anyone who has played an RPG or watched some fantasy anime sometime recently. On the one hand I understand not wanting to give away too much of the game's story in what is basically a glorified commercial for it, but I really hope that the central plotline of the game is much deeper and more sophisticated, especially in light of its pedigree.

The show itself is made up of fairly bright colors, like most of its cousins, and the character designs are cute though perhaps not terribly unique. The animation quality is above average for most of the series, which I would expect coming from Production I.G. Music is unobtrusive and suits the series fairly well in terms of setting the mood and accompanying the action, but it's not particularly memorable. In case you haven't noticed in some of my previous reviews, the bulk of my attention tends to fall on areas of characters, plot, and premise as opposed to the more technical aspects of a show like animation quality, character design, or music, and there's a very good reason for that. I can dissect a story and point out what I perceive to be strengths and weaknesses much more easily than I can do the same for animation and music. Honestly, when it comes to those areas I can give general descriptions of things that I enjoyed or didn't like, or give very specific examples, but they don't stay in my memory as well or as long as the story aspects. Just an FYI.

So final judgment: I enjoyed watching "World Destruction" and I appreciate it calling my attention to a promising RPG that I may have otherwise never heard of (and might never get to play), but due to its repetitive and generic plotting and just above average technical execution, it's not a show that I can recommend to everyone.

Anime Review: Overman King Gainer

Well, seeing as I have some time left before I go to bed, I decided this was as good a time as any to try and write a review of a series I just finished watching. Now I'm kind of torn in general on whether its better to write a review as soon as possible after finishing it, or whether its better to sit back and wait on it a bit and reflect. But for right now, I want to try and get some of this out while I'm still thinking about it and while I feel like writing. And so without further ado, I present to you my review of "Overman King Gainer".

Sometime in the future, the world underwent some kind of dramatic environmental change, because human civilization had become too advanced. Reflecting on its ways, humanity decided to move into large Domeopoli, away from the rich and fertile areas of the Earth so that the plants and animals could recover. So says the vertical text scroll during the opening sequence of "Overman King Gainer" and honestly you don't really ever get much more background or setting than this. The show itself begins in a confusing blur as apparent gamer nerd Gainer Sanga wins his 200th consecutive video game battle and is awarded the title of game king. The next day at school, he is promptly arrested on suspicion of Exodus (and no explanation for why or what that means) and is thrown into jail. There he meets and follows a man named Gain Bijou who breaks out of the cell, uses Gainer's help to steal a mecha (called an Overman), kidnap the daughter of the local magistrate (who eagerly jumps into the cockpit proclaiming that she's going to be a hostage) and fights several more mechs while the Exodus begins.

Seriously all of that happens in the first episode. You don't really get an idea of what an Exodus is for a couple more episodes, and why Gainer was even arrested for it in the first place is never answered. Perhaps even more inexplicable is Gainer himself. As a character Gainer is one-dimensional at best, he's the pilot of the titular Overman, King Gainer (which he named after his gaming nick) and most of the other attempts at his characterizations seem taped on. After the first episode, he spends the next several kind of whining about how much he hates the Exodus, how he was tricked into coming along, and how betrayed he feels because he trusted Gain Bijou. I read a review of the first few episodes that compared whiny Gainer to Shinji from "Evangelion" but I never hated Gainer the way I hate Shinji; in fact, i didn't really feel anything at all. Despite his whining he dutifully hops into the cockpit of his mech without any real hesitation and fights the forces of the Siberian Railways, the series antagonists. Heck, even if he didn't think he was going to go on an Exodus, you can't help but wonder what he thought he would do after breaking out of jail, brandishing a gun and assaulting several guards, stealing a giant robot and wrecking the city in the escape. Eventually his reason for hating the Exodus is revealed (his parents were murdered by pro-Exodus forces) but the revelation comes out in the middle of a completely unrelated fight. He just blurts it out for no reason, and although that plot point comes up again in the later half of the series, no real reason is given for the murders and no real implications occur due to the second revelation. These kind of character inconsistencies are not specific to Gainer, but his are probably the most notable as he's the apparent main character.

Having said that, for a good portion of the series it's his mentor, Gain Bijou, who really steals the show. The mysterious Exodus specialist hired to prepare everything, he's the cool, collected, mysterious drifter that everyone seems drawn to. And a fair number of Gainer's victories are really only possible due to Gain's interference. It's largely due to Gain and his past that the series gets one of its recurring villains, Asuham Boone, but that relationship never really strays from two central points: Asuham's sister once had a fling with Gain and was heartbroken that Gain left, Asuham will do anything to capture Gain and take him back to his sister. His devotion to this task is almost laughable and his motives and methods take a bizarre turn for the crazy near the show's climax. Speaking of the villains, for the most part they're a gaggle of goons: there's a troop of about three or four henchmen who consistently show up and manage to bungle things up, and even their superiors never really manage to be menacing in the least.

Now I've been ragging on this series a fair amount so far, so you must be wondering "If it's so bad, why did you keep watching it?" Well to be honest, the show isn't all that bad. I found it to be kind of charming, and some of the stuff like the bumbling villains and the creative and bizarre mecha designs (more on that later) seem to try and evoke a retro/nostalgia type feeling. It's not really any one thing I can put my finger on, but the vibe of the show really did remind me of some of the classic giant robot shows of the 70's/80's. The series' opening I think has a lot to do with that. A catchy tune with lyrics like "King... King... King Gainer! Metal Overman King Gainer!" and "Metal Full Coat!" (in Engrish) set to the various characters and mechs from the series doing The Monkey (aka. the Jonny Bravo Dance) is just oddly charming. From a technical aspect, the animation is fairly consistently above average and the characters fairly distinctive.

Speaking of character designs, I have to talk a little bit about some of the bizarrely creative mecha designs this show sports. When I first heard about this series, I read that the director was Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the Gundam series, so I kind of expected the same kind of samey, giant human shaped robots. The titular King Gainer by contrast, although it is human shaped, has a giant fishbowl for a head and dreadlocks. Another one has what appears to be a large purple horn with lights on it and a detachable cape. Another is a big ball of goo that freely morphs into different configurations and shapes. The big boss mech at the end has three eyes, a kind of... bat face, and six arms. Crazy stuff. In addition to all of these Overmen, there are more down to earth, work oriented mechs like the Panthers and Dogodzos, which have that kind of awkward, mass produced type look to them as opposed to the unique, one-off looks of the Overmen.

Ultimately, I can't help but feel the "Overman King Gainer" was a series that had a lot of potential that it ultimately didn't capitalize on. There were really clever moments that I loved, like Gainer confessing his love to his high school sweetheart to defeat the mind reading tactics of an opponent, and the backstory and setting of the world could have been really interesting, but it seems to much of that was just kind of left aside. I enjoyed watching the series and I don't regret buying it. The action and the fights were well executed, and the plot was serviceable. Above average overall and certainly better than some of the shonen romantic comedy crap I've been watching fansubs of lately, but your mileage may vary.

-ZK

Game Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Hey, it's only been three weeks or so since my last post. One day I shall hold myself to a regular schedule of some sort, but that day is yet far off. So without further ado, I present to you my review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)

For the sake of my typing fingers and for a slightly shorter post, I will refer to this game using the abbreviation TFU for the rest of this review. Chances are if you enjoy Star Wars and gaming even a little, you've already heard about this game and if you had any intention of buying it and playing, have already done so. If not, the game takes place in the years between Episode 3 and Episode 4, when the Empire was consolidating its power and Darth Vader was jetting about the galaxy and murdering Jedi where he found them. It is on one such journey to Kashyyk (the Wookie homeworld) that he finds a young boy, the son of the Jedi he has just killed, who seems unusually gifted with the Force. Darth Vader takes the boy and begins training him as his Secret Apprentice. I capitalized "Secret Apprentice" because that's basically all you will know him by. At the very beginning of the game he is given the codename "Starkiller", but that only comes up once or twice at the very beginning and the main character is simply referred to by pronouns for the rest of the game.

Now TFU was released for every video gaming console under the sun, and from the water-cooler discussions I've had, there are actually substantial differences b/t the different versions, aside from the PS3 and the Xbox 360 which basically get the same game. Case in point, on the Wii, you can actually use Force Choke to kill your enemies. Not so on the 360. I know it sounds like a minor quibble, especially when you talk about the advanced particle and destruction effects and enemy AI that's only possible on the 360/PS3, but to me it still rings a little hollow since I can't Force Choke my enemies into oblivion. That said, the powers that are available are still oodles of fun. Force Lightning (especially once leveled up) is probably one of the most useful powers in the game as it does considerable damage, branches out to hit multiple enemies, and temporarily immobilizes most of them, but my personal favorite has to be just grabbing stormtroopers and then hurling them in random directions, or dropping them from great heights.

I enjoyed the gameplay overall and found combat to be rather intuitive. With a handful of exceptions, I found the game on the whole to be fairly easy (I was playing on normal difficulty) with one area at the start of the last level being a glaring exception: it is a room where enemies, both cannon fodder and challenging, just keep spawning in wave after wave. They do eventually run out, but I died more getting past that section of the level more than I had at any other point in the game, combined. It was just intensely aggravating. One more part that I had concerns about going in from the reviews I'd read was a sequence in the later part of the game where you pull a Star Destroyer down from orbit, as in the trailers. In theory, you're supposed to follow on-screen prompts indicating how to move position the spacecraft while fighting off waves off TIE fighters. The reviews all indicated that the prompts were often wrong and the act of juggling the manipulation with the TIE fighters was broken. I disagree, at least to the latter point. The prompts may have been misleading, but honestly I didn't really pay attention to them: once I figured out what the game seem to expect of me, I just did the positioning and tweaking by myself, only looking to the prompts to see when I had finished. And the TIEs are easily dispatched since they come in clear waves.

The story is fairly strong for what it is and is quite a bit more enjoyable than the plotlines from the three prequels. Continuity demands that certain events have to take place, but seeing how we get there and what the implications are was entertaining. I would have liked to see it fleshed out a little bit more, especially since the whole game clocks in at about 7 hours, but I don't have many complaints about it as is.

Anime Review: Tengen Toppan Gurren Lagann

Whew. It's been quite awhile since my last post here, and it hasn't been for lack of anything to write about. If anything I've actually had the opposite problem: I've been watching so much new anime lately that I haven't had a chance to write about them or figure out where to start. Well now I do, a series that I enjoyed so much that I can't NOT write about it while it is still at least somewhat fresh in my mind. If I talk (or chat as the case may be) with you on a semi-regular basis there's a good chance I've already mentioned this series to you. Even if I have, and especially if I haven't, here's what the whole thing boils down to: Gurren Lagann is awesome and you should go watch it now.

In a couple of words, "Gurren Lagann" is about Giant Robots. The good guys run around in giant robots, the bad guys run around in giant robots, and everyone fights everyone else in giant robots. Now I'm only speaking about the anime that I remember watching (which is admittedly the tiniest fraction of what's available), but it seems a lot of giant robot shows recently either: have elaborate and complicated socio-political environments and plotlines (pretty much any "Gundam" series ever and "Code Geass"); or have main characters that are adolescents with more baggage than all of LAX airport. This is a gross generalization, but it seems that gone are the giant robot shows of old where it seemed everything was simple, stylish, and larger than life. "Gurren Lagann" hearkens back to these robot shows in the same way that "Shaun of the Dead" pokes fun at and pays homage to zombie movies.

The setup is as follows: Simon and Kamina are two youths living day to day in an underground village digging tunnels outward and down so that the village can expand. Though the two dream of going to the surface (with Kamina doing most of the dreaming and Simon just kind of tagging along) they are forbidden and their attempts end in failure and punishment. One day, Simon (who is apparently some kind of digging genius with his hand drill) makes two astounding discoveries digging around in the dirt. One is a small glowing drill bit and the other is a smell mecha. Shortly after making this discovery the roof of the village collapses and in falls a buxom girl armed with a huge rifle fighting a Giant Robot. The girl, Yoko, teams up with Kamina and Simon and using the small mech that he found, defeat the villain and ascend to the surface.

On the surface this seems like a fairly straightforward plot and you may be wondering what's so special about it. And that's part of it, the story is a straightforward tale of two dreamers and the path they take. The other thing I've not mentioned yet is what the mechas actually look like. They're humanoid, with human looking arms and legs, but they have no head. Instead, the entire torso is one big face with eyes and a mouth that mimics the pilot inside to generally comedic effect. And the mech that Simon finds and pilots? It's about 4-6 ft. tall compared to the 30-50 ft height of his opponents and its special weapons are drills that sprout from its hands, or replace its legs and feet, whatever the situation seems to require. And the homage/parody thing I mentioned earlier is best represented by a gag in the second or third episode involving "combining" mechas to increase their power. You'll just have to see it.

Well setup and mechas are two important ingredients of a good Giant Robot show, but any anime ultimately lives or dies based on its characters, and on this count "Gurren Lagann" doesn't disappoint. Kamina in a lot of ways is the living embodiment of the series and its spirit and he's loudly outspoken, supremely confident in his and Simon's abilities and believes so much in his dream, his friends and his own ability that he comes up with some crazy ideas. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling the surprise, but Kamina, with his boundless machismo and optimism, is an energetic and charismatic enough character that soon he has inspired humans all across the surface to join his banner and fight against their mysterious oppressors, the beastmen. And although Simon comes close to the whining protagonist archetype that bugs me so much, Kamina's presence and his own inner reserves force him to come through in the clinch and ultimately make him a much more likeable character. The story starts out fairly light hearted, but as the series progresses it beccomes more serious and mature as its own characters mature, but never completely loses the element of fun. After all, this is a series where a special attack is named "Super Galaxy Boomerang Megat Cutter" without the slightest bit of shame or irony.

I've gone on and on and could probably continue to do so if I'm not careful, so let me wrap up now before I wear out your patience. "Gurren Lagann" is definitely a Gainax show. The art design, the high level of quality and the blend of humor and action and drama bring to mind good memories of shows like "Gunbuster" and "FLCL". Basically, if anything I've described sounds even the remotest bit interesting, or if you enjoy giant robot action, you owe it to yourself to give "Gurren Lagann" a try. I hear that it's currently airing on the Sci-Fi channel as part of their Anime Mondays block, though it's somewhere in the second arc of the story. However you do it, check it out.

EDIT: If you're curious, one of the guys at the Anime News Network has an interesting column comparing "Gurren Lagann" to some of Gainax's older works and drawing parallels. An amusing read if nothing else. Read it here.

Manga First Impressions: Psycho Buster

Alright, straight from the file of "I read it online so why the hell not?" I bring you, dear reader, my first impressions of the manga series "Psycho Buster". So far I've only read the first 10 chapters (maybe 2 full volumes?) so please keep in mind that a lot of this is just my "knee-jerk" reaction to this series so far.

The story revolves around four "prodigies" (the translation's term, not mine) who are on the run from their handlers, called "farmers". All four of them have some kind of psychic ability and their leader, a powerful clairvoyant, predicts that they must entrust their fate to someone named "Kakeru". Kakeru turns out to be just a regular high school student: he loves video games and has absolutely no extraordinary attributes. After being attacked by the "farmers" shortly after meeting the 4 prodigies, Kakeru decides to help out where he can and, specifically, to protect the lone female in the group who he quickly develops a crush on. At first, Kakeru seems to have no power himself, save for extraordinary luck. For example, when the chief antagonist is about to shoot him in the head, the bullet is deflected by a piece of falling debris as the house begins to collapse, but only in the villain's vicinity. A couple more lucky breaks and his own quick thinking helps Kakeru protect his new friends from some of the psychic soldiers the farmers send after them, but apparently there is a deeper secret that Kakeru unknowingly hides: one fully known by the clairvoyant and eventually the villain.

This is honestly about as far as the story gets in these first ten chapters (with some minor omissions on my part) and the audience is given a glimpse of the true power that Kakeru holds. The problem is it doesn't make any sense. Now although this series is licensed in the US, I first ran across translated scans of it online so that is what I'm reading. The site that hosts these scans has occasionally had problems putting pages of the different series in their proper order, so I don't know how much of my confusion is due to the translation, possible order mistakes, and how much is the actual plotting. The way the power manifests itself seems to disregard ordinary notions of story flow and no explanation whatsoever is given beyond "it happens". I can't go into details without giving away spoilers so you'll just have to read it for yourself and see what I mean. Maybe in subsequent chapters this will be explained, but for me the discontinuity was almost enough to make me put down the series and stop. You want to entice the reader with mystery, not beat them in the head from behind with a seeming non-sequitir.

The art style doesn't have anything particularly unique in it but the characters are all well drawn, the action scenes flow well and are smartly choreographed and the characters are distinct enough so that mixing them up is a non-issue. The "wtf" moment about Kakeru's power aside, this seems like an interesting series and I will be following it, if only to see if the explanation they concoct is sufficient to explain what happened in chapter 8. :-p

-ZK

Anime First Impressions: Blade of the Immortal / Soapbox: The Manga was Better

This is kind of rare for me, but I've decided to do a "knee-jerk reaction" post detailing my first impressions of the new "Blade of the Immortal" anime. If you don't read manga on a regular basis or you only read Naruto and the other stuff that comes out of Shonen Jump, you may not have heard of Blade of the Immortal. Written and drawn by Hiroaki Samura, the series is still ongoing in Japan (as far as I know) and for years the English adaptation has been done by Dark Horse comics. The story is set sometime during the height of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan and starts by following two main characters: Manji and Rin. Manji is a former samurai who killed his lord after realizing that he had killed, on his lord's order, a group of innocent farmers who had intended to report the lord's corruption to the shogunate. Sometime after that, his body became host to colony of "blood worms" that instantly regenerate any wounds he receives, to the point of regenerating serious head wounds and re-attaching severed limbs. In order to atone for his murder of 100 good men and finally be allowed to die, he resolves to murder 1000 evil men. Rin is a young girl whose father runs a small sword dojo. After her father and mother are brutally murdered by Anotsu Kagehisa and his Itto-ryu, she swears vengeance and, following someone's recommendation, hires Manji as her bodyguard. It's a little more complicated than that, but I'll leave it to you to read the series and see for yourself.

Now the first episode of the new anime series covers the events of the first chapter of the manga, which runs about 40 pages. Not a whole lot of material to cover, just Manji's basic introduction, explanation of the blood worms, and why he's decided to kill 1000 evil men. The first episode covers everything that happens in the manga, but it somehow ends up feeling kind of disjointed. The beginning of the episode adds an entirely new scene that shows Manji killing the peasants and then killing his lord. Actually it shows a samurai killing some peasants, and then a silhoutte from outside of someone being beheaded inside a feudal lord's house. The manga covers this through simple exposition right before a fight and the anime does the same because the brief sequence at the beginning conveys no real information so it ends up feeling kind of superfluous. Additionally, the episode spends a few minutes showing Rin and then hinting at what happens to her family, and even shows Anotsu talking with a representative of the government about having his dojo officially endorsed. The only reason I know this is from having read the manga because no context is given for either of these little sequences and no proper introduction is even given for the characters in them, so it feels a bit like a shoe-horned cameo. Since this stuff takes up time though, the rest of the events in the episode end up feeling kind of rushed and the transitions a bit disjointed.

One of the most striking things about the manga, and one of the things I've both loved and hated about it, has been the artwork. His characters forego the huge eyes present in most manga and anime in favor of more realistic proportions (although the relative size of the iris is still highly variable depending on emotion and situation) and all of the artwork has an almost, sketchy quality to it. Obviously the sketchiness wouldn't translate very well to animation, but the character designs so far seem fairly faithful to their source. Manji seems to differ the most, being a bit beefier than his manga counterpart and having a slightly stronger jaw-line (I'm not sure how I feel about either change yet). Let me move onto personality so long as I'm griping about Manji. This stems from some kind of personalized image of what Manji acts and sounds like, but the character protrayed in the show didn't quite fit the bill for me. I don't know how much Dark Horse may have strayed from the tone of the original script in their translation, but their version of Manji always struck me as a bit more laid-back, or at the very least more cynical and sarcastic. The anime's Manji seems more despondent, more remorseful of his situation. Not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, but I kind of liked the cocky, smart-ass edge that Manji seems to have in the translated manga. For example, when he's complaining about being immortal one of the first things he mentions is how sloppy his sword skills are getting since he knows his opponent can't kill him. I guess in general between Manji's attitude and some minor scenes that the anime chooses to omit, the manga had a slightly more light-hearted feel despite the violence and serious subject matter.

Speaking of violence, let's now move onto the fights. The animation quality of the series seems to be fairly high so the one or two fight scenes shown in this episode look fairly good. It even seems to emulate the big full page or double page spread finishers of the manga. In those finishers, the loser is shown coming apart (literally) in some way, with their arms falling off or their head chopped into some strange pattern, with the winner striking some kind of "just-finished-a-technique" type pose against a beautiful background of flowers or something. When Manji goes in for the finishing blow in the big fight of the episode, a series of shots showing different wallpaper/kimono style backgrounds flashes through to represent each time Manji strikes. Obviously the series tones down the most graphic violence, so although you see cuts appearing on the guy's face, you don't see it fly apart at those seams. An understandable concession, but it looked cooler in the manga. :-p

Which brings me to my final point: the music. According to ANN, the music is written by Kou Ohtani, who has also done the music for series like Haibane Renmei and games like Shadow of the Colossus. An excellent composer who's capable of writing some moving and haunting stuff, but the music in this episode just felt kind of mismatched. Granted, the audio on the fansub that I was watching wasn't great, so that may skew my opinion towards the negative, but it seemed like there was always some music playing, even when a scene might have been better served by silence, and that especially during the fight or action scenes the attempt to try and ratchet up the tension and the energy just falls a little flat.

Ok, so I've spent the last who-knows-how-many words ragging on this series based on one episode, exactly the kind of behavior that I usually refrain from. But once in awhile every fan is allowed to gripe about all the things he perceives to have gone wrong with some adaptation of a beloved franchise, whether it's Trekkies moaning about the newest Star Trek series, book fans griping about the latest movie adaptation, or Star Wars fans bitching about the prequels. And don't get me wrong, I'm still going to watch this series and now that I've seen the first episode, I'll try to adjust my expectations so I can watch it and judge it on its own merits instead of constantly comparing it to the source material. But I do really enjoy this series and just this once I had to indulge in this impulse. And for the record, the manga usually is better than its anime counterpart. :-p

-ZK

Reader Poll: Endings

Hey all. It's been awhile since my last post and I've had several things that I've felt that I should write about, but somehow none of them got further than that. So instead of a review of some sort, I thought I'd solicit the opinions of all 5 people who read this blog. Or that at least I'd try to.

So I wanted to ask you about story endings. In a general sense, which kind of endings do you like best: happy endings, bad endings, or the bittersweet/tragic endings? For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to set the following definitions. Happy endings involve the hero or protagonist successfully overcoming his trial/conflict/obstacle and living happily ever after. Bad endings are the opposite, the hero tries and fails. The bittersweet endings involve the hero succeeding, but losing his life in the process or losing something dear to him.

Please leave your answers and thoughts in the comments.

-ZK

Anime Review: "Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody"

Well it's been a couple of days longer than I'd intended, but here I'm finally writing my review of the first Bleach movie, "Memories of Nobody". Now, if you have been even remotely interested in anime in the past few years, there's a good chance you've heard of Bleach. Set in contemporary Japan, the story centers around 15 year old high school student Ichigo Kurosaki (using western naming order). With his naturally bright orange hair, he's had to deal with assumptions that he's a delinquent for years and so has developed a kind of hard, take-no-shit attitude, but he remains a very caring and kind person despite his perpetual scowl. However, the thing that really sets him apart from his peers is his ability to see and interact with spirits. He's been able to see them and speak to them for as long as he can remember but his life takes a sharp turn when he meets up with a shinigami (lit: death god, translated as "Soul Reaper") and his family is attacked by an evil spirit called a Hollow. Through a certain sequence of events, Ichigo gains the powers of a Soul Reaper to protect his family and the series follows him and his growing cast of allies as they strive to get stronger to defeat a cast of increasingly more powerful enemies.

If this plot summary sounds kind of familiar, that's because in the most general sense it follows the structure of dozens of shonen type action-adventure series that came before it. But both the manga and the anime have enough style, humor, and plot to make it compelling nonetheless. Now the problem with movie spinoffs of these kind of long running (nearly 180 episodes in Japan) series is that they occupy some kind of nebulous other-space in the series canon. The movies assume that you've already watched the show, so little or no attempt is made to introduce established characters to new viewers. On the other hand, long running fans of the anime sometimes dislike these movies because they take place at a time in series canon where there should have been no time for these kinds of shenanigans. This problem seems especially pronounced if they also follow the source manga and they have very clear expectations of what the plot flow in the anime should look like. "Memories of Nobody" falls into this same area, so if you are either new to the series or a continuity fanatic, consider yourself warned. Additionally, minor spoilers follow in the review, FYI.

In "Memories of Nobody", a strange dimensional space bridging the Soul Society and the living world spells possible catastrophe for both while in the real world Ichigo must deal with the appearance of an unknown type of spirit and a mysterious Soul Reaper named Senna. Eventually it is revealed that the new spirits and the dimensional space are the products of a nefarious plot masterminded by some newcomers in strange armor, but honestly that stuff is all kind of glossed over really quickly. The meaning of the new dimension and the danger it poses is explained in a five-minute lecture using kid-like drawings and most of the villains (I think there are about 6) don't even get names let alone any meaningful dialog or screen time. Senna is the only new character to get any kind of development and half of the movie seems to be Senna and Ichigo hanging out. Needless to say, Senna is more than what she appears and is somehow central to the villain's plans (vaguely defined in objective or motivation), so the bad guys snatch her up. What follows is a series of fights as backup from Soul Society arrives to support Ichigo in his bid to save Senna. This sequence is basically nothing more than fan service as you get to see some of the different squad captains use their special abilities to dispatch underlings in short 2-3 minute fight sequences.

Now my description of the movie may sound a bit critical, but let me get one thing out of the way: I really enjoyed this movie. The animators had a larger budget to work with and it really shows, especially in the fights at the movie's climax. And although initially a bit obnoxious, I grew to care about Senna's character and her plight as the story fleshed her out, though admittedly I'm a bit of a softy at heart. What I dislike is the movie's pacing. As you're watching it keeps things moving at a pretty good clip so you never really get bored, but once all is said done and the credits roll, you can't help but feel that everything moved maybe a bit too quickly. The villains may as well have been cardboard cutouts and the only purpose they really served was as cannon fodder, and to put Senna in danger. I'm kind of rambling at this point, but I expect my villains to have a little more substance, especially with the pedigree of baddies from Bleach. Additionally, Ichigo's main allies, his human schoolmates and comrades, get a 5 minute cameo in the whole movie. I personally like these guys more than some of the Soul Reapers, but since their moves are not as flashy and you can only reasonably showcase a handful of characters, I grudgingly acknowledge why they were sidelined.

Being a theater showing in America, the movie was dubbed and dubbed well, in my opinion. All the regulars from the TV dub reprised their roles with Jonny Young Bosch as Ichigo and Michelle Ruff as Rukia. Dubs have come a long way in terms of quality compared to when I first started watching anime and I like to give them their fair shake, if only because it allows me to multi-task while watching anime. A few years ago, and maybe even today, the question of dubs vs. subs was a contentious one and maybe someday I'll post a soapbox with my take on the issue. But it's getting late, so I'll end this slightly rambling review with this recommendation: if you like Bleach then I would highly recommend watching this movie at least once. If you don't like Bleach, there's a good chance you've never seen it so go watch it. Right now.

-ZK

Quick Checkin, or, Soapbox: Movie Manners

Hey. Just a quick update to let anyone reading that I'm still alive. I just got back from a showing of the first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody at a nearby theater (nearby being a relative term) and had a lot of fun. Expect a review to be coming in the next few days, but for now I'm tired and don't have the energy to write one as I have work in the morning. However before I go to bed, there is something that I need to get off my chest, so get ready for my first soapbox. It's about some of the antics that went on in the theater before and during the movie.

When I first showed up at the theater, I was honestly a little surprised by the number of people that were in the theater. The room was maybe half full (if that), but it was still a lot more than I had expected to show up. Maybe I'm still getting used to the idea that anime and manga fandom is fairly large and rapidly growing, but whatever the case I was surprised and a little pleased to see that many people there. However it quickly became clear that most of them, or at least a VERY loud portion, were middle schoolers or MAYBE high schoolers. Not surprising. I was in middle school when I started watching anime and honestly what demographic is most likely to think of cartoons as a regular source of entertainment? American anime fans are well known for being enthusiastic about their hobby, but unfortunately other stereotypes that I've encountered peg us as being extremely outspoken, lacking in basic social graces or awareness, and perhaps TOO enthusiastic. Sadly some of the patrons at the theater tonight only reinforced these stereotypes.

Before the movie, they were shouting at each other and holding a conversation across 8 rows of seats. A portion of it seemed to pertain to particular anime series, but the vast majority of it consisted of inside jokes and references that, while incredibly amusing to this group of apparent friends, were completely lost on the rest of us in the theater. And yet, they felt the need to broadcast these comments for the sake of everyone in the theater. Just because the movie hasn't started yet doesn't mean that you are given free reign to be as loud as you want. You are still in a public place, in the presence of strangers who honestly don't really care that you saw a video online replacing the dialog from a scene of Naruto with an audio clip from The Waterboy. Please be aware of this and be aware that many people are not as tolerant as I am.

Next was the movie itself. There was a group of very loud fans (both genders) who felt the need to scream or holler when they favorite character came on screen or to make snarky remarks (and lame jokes) to each other in regular conversation volume during the movie. Again, please remember that you are in a public place and that you must be courteous to your fellow moviegoers. In the past I too have been guilty of adding MST3K type commentary to movies and do you know what happened to me? A very large, very intimidating man in row in front of me turned around and politely asked me to "Shut the hell up." When you are talking out loud or screaming during the movie, two things happen. First, any kind of immersion the movie has created is instantly shattered as I am ripped violently back into the real world by your shenanigans. Second, I can no longer hear what the characters are saying. It might be something unimportant like, "I've got your cheeseburgers" or some exposition of vital importance, but I will never know because you were too busy squealing or being an asshole. This kind of behavior may be acceptable when you're watching a movie at home with your friends, but please don't assume that the rest of us in the theater want to hear your clever commentary over the movie's audio track.

To make it clear, I (and a couple other patrons) did voice these same opinions (although with far fewer words) during the movie to the troublemakers, so this isn't just some after-the-fact whining because I didn't want to do anything in public. However during the drive back home (and it's not a short one) I kept stewing about this stuff and just had to write something about it. In summary, your enthusiasm for anime is great and I whole heartedly support it. Just temper it a bit with some consideration for other people and put a little thought towards appropriateness. That's all I ask.

-ZK

Manga Reviews: Koi Kaze & Living Game

Good grief it's been a long time since my last post. I blame a variety of factors, most involving various conflicts of schedule and just about anything else that deflects responsibility from me. At any rate, today I've decided to give a 2-for-1 type review: "Koi Kaze" and "Living Game". Neither of these series is available domestically as far as I know and I just happened upon translated scans of them while browsing around the internet. It has been a month or two since I read these series and I'm writing this from memory, so I will say that least 80% of what I write will be true, with the rest having some probability of being a little muddled. So with that out of the way let's get started.

Living Game

This series is an older one, it's publishing run was from 1990-1993, and is a fairly cute slice-of-life/romance/comedy story. The main character is 25-year old salaryman Raizo Fuwa who is struggling to deal with the Japanese real estate boom and eventual recession of the '80's and early 90's. He lives in a small cramped apartment where he can't move without bumping into anything, and he works in a small cramped office with four other people where there is barely enough room to fit their desks. But change is on the horizon as he manages to find a new, larger apartment and his boss finds a new larger office and even hires on a new employee. Through a series of events both the new office and the old office get demolished, so the company begins to use Fuwa's apartment as a temporary office space, leaving it nearly as cramped as his old place was. To top if all off, the new employee is a 15-year old girl named Izumi who moves to Tokyo from the country and so has no real place to go. After her initial attempt to rent a place on her own ends with the building being demolished and since Fuwa is so worried about her, he agrees to take her in and let her live in his apartment. The rest of the story, split up over 10 volumes and three years of story time, follows the blossoming relationship between Fuwa and Izumi and their individual growth. There are other characters that pop in fairly regularly like Fuwa's friendly ex-girlfriend who crashes at his apartment every time she has a fight with her rich husband and runs away, the rich husband, and a couple more because what's a romantic comedy without some zany characters?

If I were to pick one word to describe this series, I guess that I'd have to go with "charming". It's hard for me to peg a single thing about the series that I really enjoyed because it all comes together so well that it's hard for me to pick it apart, but since I am writing a review I will at least try. As you can see from the image above, the art and the character designs are simple and clean characterized by lots of soft round shapes and the characters are easily distinguishable from each other and fairly cute. Throughout the story the characters appearance change to help convey the passage of time in their world so while Izumi looks like a schoolgirl when she first shows up on Fuwa's door (as pictured), she finishes the series looking like a much more mature woman. The art style and the usually subtle humor creates an upbeat and slightly silly mood that carries through the entire series, and even when the mood turns serious the two keep the series from getting too dark which is a welcome to "Koi Kaze", which I'll talk about a little later.

Another positive note for me, was this was one of the rare series where I didn't really hate anyone in the cast. Fuwa is kind of whiny at the start, but onlike some other protagonists who just seem to be whiny on principle, he has a legitimate reason to gripe (his home being taken over by his office) and he proves early on to be a reliable person in a pinch (despite constantly being called irresponsible) and has a good heart. As the series progresses and life forces him onto new paths that he'd never considered he manages to find something that he's passionate about and grows to rise to the new challenges thrown his way. Izumi starts off as just a cheerful young girl who seems ready and willing to help, but she occasionally acts as a compassionate counterweight to Fuwa's big city callousness in a handful of situations and she grows as she comes to terms with her feelings for Fuwa, the reason she ran away from home to Tokyo, and what exactly she wants to get out of life. All in all, the characters are very believable and relatable and the relationship between Fuwa and Izumi stays chaste, but emotionally deep, for the vast majority of the series. I tend to get a bit emotionally invested myself in series that I enjoy and so when I started the series I had some niggling issues with the ages of the protagonists and the nature of their relationship, but by the end they seem to be so genuinely in love with each other (and Izumi is old enough) that I finished the series pleased with the way everything had developed and ended. If you're looking for a charming little romance that's light on angst and moves at a decent clip without getting bogged down in years of limbo (Ah My Goddess! I'm looking at you) I'd recommend reading "Living Game".


Koi Kaze

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to think of this series now that I've finished it. It's one that I picked up on a whim without carefully reading the little plot synopsis. The premise goes like this: Nanoka and Koshiro are siblings who were separated when their parents divorced 10 years ago and they haven't seen each other since. Because his house is closer to her new high school, Nanoka decides to move in with Koshiro but they meet by accident and go on a date and some sparks fly, only later to realize that they are really brother and sister. Now this is more or less what I had to go on when I started reading so I was expecting some kind of light-hearted comedy or something, I don't really remember. One thing that the summary neglects to mention though are the respective ages of the brother and sister. Koshiro is 28 and works at an omiai company (meetings for marriages basically) and Nanoka is a 15 year old high school student.

Like "Living Game," "Koi Kaze" is a seinen series (young male adult) which explains the ages of their protagonists and I have to admit that "Koi Kaze" is fairly well written. After about chapter 3 I started having issues with the course the story and the characters seemed to be following, but I kept reading because I really wanted to know where everything was going to go. As I said near the end of my "Living Game" review, I have some problems with a 20-something year old guy hooking up with a 15 year old girl, but that series defused that particular feeling by being relatively light hearted and chaste. "Koi Kaze" has much less humor in it and maybe as a result, some of the stuff that happens seems a lot less innocent. For example there's a scene not long after Nanoka moves in where Koshiro walks in and sees the laundry basket with Nanoka's underwear. He's spent most of the day trying to reject the notion that he has romantic (or sexual) feelings for his little sister so what does he decide to do? He grabs a pair of her panties, crouches in the corner and starts sniffing them. Nanoka walks in at this point and because she didn't see what he was up to, she's startled by his extreme reaction. The whole series kinda plays out like this with Koshiro struggling with himself because he knows his feelings are not acceptable and the fact that she reciprocates his feelings doesn't help things at all. This internal conflict within Koshiro is probably the central element of the series and makes for a compelling read but I found myself in a situation where I couldn't think of an ending that satisfied me. The author has made it so that they're feelings for each other are powerful enough that if they conform to social conventions then there will be much heartbreak and pain all around. But if they flaunt society and act true to their feelings, I can't feel good about it because incest (and especially pedo-incest) is something I feel very strongly against. Koshiro's generally creepy behavior and his dirty looking sideburn/beard... thing does nothing to dispel the weird pedo-vibes I got from the guy. I won't say which way it ended, and if you don't mind reading something you disagree with, I'd say give it a whirl. I enjoyed reading it once, but I highly doubt I'll ever read it again. On the other hand, if you have absolutely no problems with the scenario the manga cooks up, don't contact me. Ever. Seriously.

-ZK

Game Review: "Crisis Core: FFVII" (PSP)

Alright, now this is a game that I was looking forward to for a long time so if you're expecting an unbiased, objective review you had best go look elsewhere. As a part of the "Compilation of Final Fantasy 7", I was fully expecting to forgive some level of deficiency in the gameplay so long as it looked good and was an engaging continuation of the FF7 storyline. I put on my fanboy glasses when I'm playing these games; the rosy lenses that allow me to be more forgiving just because it indulges my nostalgia a bit rather than the super-critical pair that drive me to critique every facet of the game more harshly than I normally would. I wore those rosy glasses playing "Dirge of Cerberus" and overlooked its gameplay issues and still managed to enjoy myself. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't really need my rosy glasses. By it's own merits "Crisis Core" is a great game with some flaws and probably the best entry from the "Compilation" to hit US shores.

"Crisis Core" serves as a prequel to "Final Fantasy 7" and is set 6 or 7 years before the start of the game. The story starts with SOLDIER 2nd Class, Zack Fair and his participation in ending a war between the Shinra Electric Power Company and the country/city/province of Wutai over Shinra's plans to build a mako reactor in the area. If you read over the last sentence and are left scratching your head, my advice to you is to stop reading right here and don't really plan on picking up this game. On the one hand, Square-Enix does a good job of introducing the different characters in the game and giving you enough information that even someone new to FF7 would be able to follow along and probably even enjoy it. However, the plot of "Crisis Core" explores in great detail the history behind one of the big plot twists in "Final Fantasy 7". Anyone who hasn't played FF7 by now and has grown up as a gamer on the PS2 and Xbox is unlikely to go back and play through the admittedly clunky graphics of a 10 year old PS1 game, but it is my sincere suggestion that you play through that game first so that the effect of the plot twist is not diluted by, "I knew that already. So what's the big deal?" If you have played FF7, then you know how "Crisis Core" ends, but the great part of the story is that it shows several familiar characters in a different time, with different personalities. A genial, not-crazy Sephiroth is certainly a welcome change, as is a Cloud who doesn't spend half his time and energy brooding about something or other. Related to this, the cinematics in this game are gorgeous and i was surprised that the PSP could do stuff like this. The FMV sequences easily look as good as the FF7 movie "Advent Children" that came out a year or two ago and the in game graphics are roughly equal to many titles that I could point to on the PS2. This is maybe not a fair comparison since the PSP screen is so small compared to your average TV, but that's just the feeling that I got. At any rate, the game looks great.

Now however much I praise the plot or characters of "Crisis Core", if the gameplay is boring or broken there are going to be few people who will play it long enough to see that plot. I would describe "Crisis Core" as an action-RPG, where battles happen in real time and you are free to move about the battle area and dodge and even block enemy attacks. Being an RPG, I would divide the game into three parts: cinematics and story sequences, running around interacting with the environment for puzzles or info and opening chests, and battle. Puzzles are generally of the "Go find this and bring it here" variety, but there aren't many of these and the game is mostly a linear walk from area to area and battle to battle. While in battle, the shoulder buttons allow you to move the cursor on the command menu at the bottom of the screen to select regular attacks, magic, or items. The game auto-locks on enemies in the general direction that you point the joystick and if you are able to get behind and flank your enemy, you can score critical hits that do more damage than usual. The last facet of the battle system is the DMW gauge, a slot-machine like mechanic in the corner of the screen that determines what kind of buffs you get in battle, when you can level up your character or your materia, and when you can unleash your limit breaks or summons, powerful attacks or spells that can really help turn the tide of a difficult battle. I have a couple of minor quibbles about aspects of the battle system, but I will reserve most of my ire for the DMW gauge for one simple reason: you can't control it. At all. It is completely random. Now if it just controlled the summons or limit breaks, I could deal with it. It just means that I have to set up my tactics and equipment without relying on any super attacks, but if they occur then it's a great boon. It's the fact that it controls when you level up that really bugs me. Now I said it's completely random, but as far as your character level goes that's not entirely true. Behind the scenes the game keeps track of how much EXP you've accumulated and how much is needed for your next level (it doesn't display any of this information to you however). The greater the difference between your current EXP and the threshold for your next level is, the greater the chance the DMW will level you up, but I know of no such mechanic when it comes to leveling your materia. And when you're trying to level up materia so that you can create more powerful ones, having to engage in countless battles and just crossing your fingers is a little bit tedious. Not a huge flaw, but it is definitely an annoying feature, at least to me.

I finished the game in something like 10-12 hours, but I could easily have gone much longer because the majority of the game's playtime isn't in the main storyline. As you progress through the game you unlock missions that you can run at any time from a save point and there are a LOT of missions. Maybe a hundred or more? I only completed half of them before I got tired of it, but as a result my level was high enough that the final boss was something of a pushover. There is absolutely no variation in the missions though: they all involve walking down one of five or six environments, fighting in random battles the whole way, and finishing with a kind of boss fight at the end. They don't contribute to the story in any real way. The only reason for doing them is to gain levels and equipment. Completionists may be able to take it all the way and fight the strongest boss in the game (available once you've completed ALL of the other missions) but that made the game seem way too much like work for me.

One last point I want to comment on is the music in the game. The score is done by Takeharu Ishimoto and although he reuses and arranges several themes from FF7 (originally done by Nobuo Uematsu), most of the music in the game is original. The arranged themes are all great, reflecting the quality of Uematsu's work, but the original themes for the game are more of a mixed bag. A lot of the tracks seem to basically be variations on the same melody and a lot of the others are a kind of generic sounding "hard rock" type sound with heavy guitars and bass rhythm. The battle music especially falls into the latter category and while it does well enough, it does get fairly old after awhile. Overall, it's an ok soundtrack but I've definitely heard better.

Well, this post has run on fairly long so I won't add too much more here. I'll just reiterate the position I took in the first two paragraphs: "Crisis Core" is a great game and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoyed "Final Fantasy 7". If you've never played the original, you will probably still enjoy "Crisis Core", but I would still recommend that you go dig out a PS1 or PS1 emulator and play through FF7 first.

-ZK

Manga Impressions: Kurohime

Before I go much further, I want to explain something first really quick. Both here and in my "Mnemosyne" post I titled the entry as an "Impression." What this means to me is that it's a series that I haven't watched or read all the way, or even most of the way through. For the record, I'll use "First Impressions" if I've only read one volume or only seen 2 or 3 episodes of a standard 13 or 26 episode series, "Impressions" if I've gone past the first impressions but haven't gotten much further than halfway, and "Reviews" if I've seen most or all of the series. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's move on to "Kurohime."

The setting for the series is some kind of hybrid between a medieval fantasy world and the wild west: there are villagers living in thatched roof cottages, castles and knights next to gunslingers, gunslinging bandits, and old covered wagons out of an old western. Magicians in this world skip the traditional wands, staves, and scrolls in favor of guns with magic bullets that they craft (apparently on the spot) to have a variety of effects from healing to summoning stone golems and the like. In this world, the most powerful magician was a beautiful and buxom witch named Kurohime who challenged the gods and was punished for her arrogance: she was sealed into the form of a child with her powers suitably weakened and she would remain in this form until released by the power of love. The child, named Himeko, is a selfish, obnoxious and arrogant brat (apparently not that much different from before) who seems to constantly forget the limitations of her current form and is constantly in trouble. Enter her protector: Zero the gunslinger. As a boy 10 years ago, he was saved from death by Kurohime and fell in love with her on the spot and dedicated himself to the path of the righteous gunslinger that he saw in her at the time. He carries four guns, is crazy fast and accurate with them, but refuses to kill and instead chooses to disarm his opponents en masse. The last recurring character is Onimaru, a large man who apparently used to follow and love Kurohime 10 years ago, but was just being used and cast aside. He seeks revenge for this betrayal (and the tatoo on his back that says "dog" that Kurohime left him with) and has formed a personal army of bounty hunters for this task, but he's really more of a comical character who still pines for Kurohime somewhat.

At least up through volume 4, most of the chapters follow one of two outlines: 1) Onimaru and his gang chase Zero and Himeko and corner them, Zero puts himself on the line to protect Himeko, Himeko temporarily turns into Kurohime and saves the day or; 2) Zero and Himeko travel around looking for someone who can break her curse, happen upon Baddie-of-the-week who is misusing their magic for evil, Himeko's plans to run are foiled by Zero's sense of justice, then Zero puts himself on the line to protect Himeko who transforms into Kurohime and saves the day. Sometimes they mix it up and have Onimaru chase them and then they stumble on the bad guy. I apologize if I sound a little bit harsh, but frankly this series hasn't done much to impress me so far. The artwork is pleasant, if a little bit on the generic side, but it's just how mind-numbingly repetitive the story's been so far that really gets me. Now this is apparently a Shonen Jump series, so I understand that it's supposed to take awhile to build up your characters and flesh them out, but this is kind of ridiculous. Kurohime has something resembling character development finally start in volume 4, but it's a revelation that seems fairly obvious. Zero on the other hand is so predictable that it's almost annoying. In every chapter it seems, he makes some comment about how his guns are devoted to justice, he never hesitates to try and help some hapless bystander, and his devotion to Himeko, despite her being apparently completely contrary to the image he's idolized for the last 10 years is almost befuddling. But that's all he is. Seriously, by the end of volume 4 that is all there is to this guy. Since he has the same reaction every time a certain situation comes up, and since the types of situations never really change, there's never a chance to explore who he is or why. Maybe that's intentional but if so, you need to at least lay hooks or foreshadowing that there is something deeper behind the dull and cheerful surface. Something that will make you just kind of raise an eyebrow the first time you read it, but in time you come back and go, "So that's what that meant." Then at least there is some kind of trail that suggested that you knew where you were going with the character all along and didn't just suddenly change something to make him more interesting. *steps off soapbox*

With all my griping, you might think I hate "Kurohime," but that isn't the case. There's a reason that I try to read three or four volumes into a series before I abandon it. Even though I'm not particularly impressed by the way the series has started out, developments near the end of volume 4 have intrigued me enough that I will stay tuned to see if anything good comes out of it. This is not a great series and I doubt it ever will be, but it may yet become something entertaining. If you like shonen manga with tall, buxom ladies (the servants of the death god all look like a cross between a succubus and the Witchblade) you might want to check out "Kurohime." Just lower your expectations accordingly. Agree? Disagree? Got suggestions for improvement? Leave a comment please.

Age does NOT make everything better...

I was poking around the Xbox Live Marketplace the other day, and on a whim I decided to download the first episode of "Voltron: Defender of the Universe." I had watched a handful of episodes years ago as a kid and since the video was free, I figured "Why not?"

Where should I begin? This show is so bad it almost blew my mind. I've never seen the original anime (apparently called King of Beasts Golion according to Wikipedia) but I can only hope that it wasn't as retarded or poorly written as its English counterpart. I won't use the word "translation" because it seems large sections of the story were entirely rewritten for some reason. But the voice acting is just terrible; it reminds me a lot of the old Godzilla movie dubs where the actors ham it up, there's dialog in places where it doesn't seem like anyone is talking, and occasionally lines just seem to be thrown in because there were lip flaps there and the writers couldn't think of something that made sense. For example, the evil King Zarkon is gloating to his minions about his apparent victory and conquest of the galaxy when the camera cuts to his advisor's cat, then back to him. What does King Zarkon say? "Kitty is excited." I'm serious. The music and the sound effects are equally bad, invoking the worst aspects of the 1980's preoccupation with the synthesizer. And there are some places where sound effects make sense (like say, a building collapsing on enemy troops), but its eerily silent. Just the goofy synth music playing in the background.

As far as the animation itself, it looks to have been fairly low budget and roughly comparable to stuff from the same time frame. In a way, I give it a pass as far as animation quality just due to its age. If something new came out with the weird pacing and screen wipes and some of the awkward motion animations, I'd toss it out in a heartbeat. The only thing I can attribute it to is nostalgia and if I condemn the animation quality in Voltron, I have to condemn most of the cartoons from my childhood and I'm not quite ready to do that. I still have a stubborn, almost quixotic hope that one day, one of these series will live up to the image I have of it in my memory. But yeah. Unless you have a high tolerance for shitty acting or get a kick out of watching terrible dubs, stay FAR away from Voltron: Defender of the Universe. If you have fond memories of the show, stay even further away.

Anime Impressions: "Mnemosyne"

Well here's my first review post, but it's actually less of a "Review" and more of a "General Impressions" I suppose. Mnemosyne is a 6 episode OAV coming out in Japan and as of this posting, the first three episodes have been fansubbed into English. Each episode runs about 45 minutes including the opening and ending credits. Without giving too much away, the series follows Asougi Rin and her partner Mimi as they work as private investigators, but the two of them are immortal. They can be killed, but they possess extraordinary healing capabilites such that they always get back up eventually, although how long that takes seems to depend on their injuries.

For the most part the show plays out like a supernatural detective story and each episode is mostly a self contained mystery. A good portion of each episode follows the main characters as they sleuth around the city looking for clues using a combination of old fashioned footwork and techniques out of a spy movie. But beyond the individual stories is the larger mystery of why the girls are immortal and what enemies they have working in the background. This where most of the supernatural aspects of the show come in and so far each episode has built on the one before it and added a little bit more to the larger picture.

Mnemosyne is definitely a mature show and it takes itself seriously, so don't expect to see any super-deformed shenanigans or people getting punched through walls for comedic effect. The way the show uses violence and sexuality reminds me of an American R-rated drama. The violence is relatively realistic (by anime standards) in terms of what is physically possible and how much blood the human body contains and is used effectively to convey what is at stake for the characters and to heighten the tension. There is one scene that shows the aftermath of a torture session in the first episode that made me cringe just a bit, but it's nothing especially gory or explicit. The sexuality is similarly used, but geared a bit more to engaging the male interest as it takes the form of some shots of various bare nipples and the whole series has a noticeable "yuri" vibe, but I don't think it necessarily detracts anything from the series, with one exception that left me scratching my head as to what reason plot wise it was included at all.

Overall, I highly recommend watching this series if you're a fan of supernatural mysteries with a mature flavor. It's clearly building toward something, but I'll have to wait and see whether the payoff lives up to what it's potential. Agree? Disagree? Got suggestions for improved writing? Leave a comment.

"Never push the little, red button."

Well I'm not sure what I had in mind in terms of a posting schedule when I started this, but I'm pretty sure I've already broken it. Been spending most of my free time lately playing Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, trying to unlock characters and stages by playing through the single player SSE mode. It's kind of interesting what they were trying to do and I can appreciate it, but I don't think the game works very well as a side scrolling platformer. It's just kind of ... tedious. Of course, it's still a more interesting way of unlocking extras than "Complete 450 Vs. matches."

But that's enough of my excuses, Now I want to give a quick introduction of what I think I'll be posting in the future: short reviews of anime, video games, or whatever else happens to catch my interest at the time. Yes I do watch a fair amount of anime, both Region 1 DVDs and fansubs, and from time to time I will post short little impressions of a series I've seen (good or bad) or, if I'm feeling especially bold, a longer, more in-depth review. Having said that I'm not here to critique anime as art or to give numeric scores to shows. I'm not sophisticated or cultured enough for that. I will do a quick rundown of the setup, and then talk about what I did or didn't like about the show while trying to avoid spoilers. However, sometimes a particular gripe of mine is attachced to a specific event in the plot and I will bring up the context for that gripe. Should only happen in the longer review posts though and I'll try to place spoiler warnings at the head so you know what you're getting into. Don't have much else right now, but expect the first, quick review to go up in the next few days.

Thanks for stopping by.

-ZK

"The goggles! They do nothing!"

Hmm.... Never too late to jump on a bandwagon I suppose. This is just a test post for me to see what this thing looks like and a placeholder while I try to figure out something worth writing about.