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.