M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » Reviews

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Hecko X — Sun, 23 May 2010 09:34:13 +0000

Still being busy with exams and project, I temporarily turn over the helm to my buddy Blue Highwind (bluehighwind.blogspot.com), who wrote this review of the anime “The Girl who Leapt through Time”. Please enjoy.

Last week I received a movie in the mail through Netflix. It was flavorless, entirely unremarkable, lacking any real characters, and completely unable to deal with the major issues it brought up. Recreating the human body through nanomachines might actually be the next stage in human history, but this movie was hardly mature enough to consider that, instead relegating the entire concept to the work of a Japanese Dr. Insano. It had just one good idea: metal sandworms (in fact I only rented this movie because I saw metal sandworms in the trailer). The rest of it was completely junk that nobody should have to suffer through.

Luckily, that was “Vexille“, and has absolutely nothing to do with the movie I have for you guys today.

“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is a movie about a teenage girl… who leaps through time. No, that title isn’t some kind of complicated metaphor that in no describes the story at all, its exactly what this movie is about. If you don’t want girls leaping through time, say you’re morally opposed to the idea, this isn’t your film. I, however, being one who is rather fond of the idea of girls leaping through time, immediately rented this movie when I heard the title. And since this is indeed a movie about a girl who indeed leaps through time quite a bit, I was not disappointed. That it also turned out to be a generally good movie with a touching love story and beautiful animation – that’s all a nice bonus. I don’t know about anybody else, but all I need for my movies is just a girl and for her to leap through time, at least once. Can’t go wrong with that formula I say. But since I doubt you guys share my love for girls leaping through time, I guess I should go ahead and explain why this movie is worth a watch.

(Disclaimer: Obviously this being a work of fiction that deals with time travel, things can get very confusing and paradoxical if you think about it too much. Thinking too much about time travel is usually a bad idea in of itself, unless you want to go cross-eyed.)

Makota Kanno, the girl, is the main character. She’s an average high school student that enjoys playing baseball with her two (guy) friends… but its totally not romantic, seriously! having a really bad day: she overslept, her sister ate her pudding, she didn’t study for a pop math quiz, some idiot knocked her over, etc. Also, her bike brakes failed and now she’s about to get run over by a train and die horribly*. Then Makota suddenly discovers that she has a superpower: she can leap through time. After saving herself from what will certainly be a very painful death, Makota now has a new problem: what to do with this power? Obviously you go back and eat that pudding, study for the pop quiz, gracefully dodges the idiot, and – of course – avoid that train that almost ran you over. But things start getting a lot more complicated for Makota once romantic entanglements start entering the picture. Can you just leap back in time and avoid the haggles of growing up, and simply keep on playing baseball?

At first “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” seems to be following a very familiar theme: you can’t go back and change things through time travel, or else you’re just going to make things a whole lot worse. Lots of movies have handled this issue before, including the unbelievably horrible Aston Kutcher movie “The Butterfly Effect” – less said about that one the better. However, around the half-way mark a few major twists break the movie off this path towards something a bit more interesting. Honestly, what king of advise is “don’t go back in time”? Its completely useless, as time travel is not even an option in the real world! Fiction of this type can only be fantasy, nothing else.

Instead, “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is trying to make something of a metaphor through Makota and her super powers. At one point her best friend asks her out on a date, shocking her straight to the core. Despite Makota’s repeated jumps to the path, the relationship between these two characters is markedly changed throughout the rest of the movie – even though the moment itself has been erased from existence thanks to Makota’s time leaping. Even if you had the power to go back to the past, you can’t keep your relationships simple, and you can’t help but move forward in your life. The only other possibility is to stay behind and watch everybody else find some level of happiness. Its a stirring metaphor, perhaps even a brilliant one. Though beyond even all this, this movie is still a love story in the end, and it ends on a very ambiguous note, even if that note was meant to be hopeful.

Another thing I cannot help but praise this movie for is its impressive animation work. Most 2D animation is very static, with characters often standing still while only their mouths move. You can spot dozens of tricks animators use at times in order to avoid fully animating the motion of people, often giving a very limited view of what their actual actions are. “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” actually goes ahead and produces extremely natural and fluid motion in its characters, something you’d usually only see in 3D animation or live action. Its so well-done that I’d really like to know if motion-capture or computers were used in the process of this movie’s development, even though as far as I can tell this is indeed traditional hand-drawn animation. There is comedy, but none of it is overtly cartoony, i.e. character’s faces never morph, there are no giant beads of sweat, or any of those other anime cliches. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of visual comedy, but it definitely does not fit the emotions of this movie and I’m glad to see that the producers did not include any of it.

However, all this realism leads me to a rather odd question: why is this movie animated in the first place? Everything that happens here happens in the what is essentially the real world, there aren’t many fantastic elements (beyond the time travel bit). Since the animation is so fluid as to almost be live-action, why not have it be live-action? “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is a beautiful movie with lovely landscapes despite taking place in the “real world” (see the picture above), and I have no problems with its visuals. Shots like the one above give a fantastic poetic vision, even when taking place in the temporal world, not a fantasy Miyazaki landscape. However, those same shots could easily be found through traditional live action. Actors and actresses could easily have played the roles of Makota and her friends. What’s the point of animating this world in the first place?

I’m not saying that live-action is in any way superior, but I think this is a question that needs to be asked. As both 2D and 3D animation grows more and more life-like, eventually it will be able to perfectly replicate that of live action. At that point, what would the point of animation even be? Once its lost that element that separates it from live action, what makes it a special and unique medium for visual representation? I just think that these sorts of questions need to be asked at some point. Despite my love of animation, I really don’t know what makes its special beyond live action. That’s a question I’d really like somebody to answer at some point.

But all that is a purely secondary concern which in no way hurts this particular movie or makes it any less enjoyable or thought-provoking. If you are the kind of person who cannot take animation seriously, considering it just to be a medium for children, “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is an irrefutable counterpoint to your simple-minded position. This movie has the most original themes and original answers that I’ve seen in a movie since 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”**. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough, or “Eternal Sunshine” either for that matter.

Plus, it has a girl who leaps through time. I can’t argue with that.

————————————————
* Something like this actually – no joke – happened to me when I was ten years old. I was on my scooter riding around and crossed a street. However, some idiot was driving incredibly fast and was just about to hit me then…. I don’t know. I blacked out for what felt like hours. When I came to, the car was driving past, only inches away. He drove past calling me “idiot”, and I slowly walked back to the curb and cried. I don’t know if it was adrenaline or what, and I have no idea what happened. Did I get run over? Did something save me? Or perhaps… just maybe… I leapt through time.

** I seem to have forgotten about “Eternal Sunshine” in my countdown of the Best Movie of the Decade. Sorry about that. I was certain while writing that post that I would forget something along the way, and look I did. Oops! It is patently impossible to list the best of anything, sadly. Also, this movie too probably should have been on that list. It just goes to show that there’s always something you forget or do not know about. Never be 100% certain about anything.

Monster

Hecko X — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:58:23 +0000

Monster (モンスター monsutā) is a 162 chapter long manga written and illustrated by Urasawa Naoki. It has spawned an anime and a spin-off manga which, as far as I can understand, tells the same story as the original but with a different narrative. The manga is a psychological thriller that has a large amount of focus on what defines human identity and how far it can be pushed for one to become a “monster”.

Plot

Dr. Kenzō Tenma (Western name order), a prodigious Japanese brain surgeon operating in Germany, defies the orders of the hospital’s director in order to save the life of a young boy who had been shot in the head during a home invasion during which his parents were killed and his twin sister was left in catatonic shock and as a result, loses everything.

A few nights later, the director, the new Chief of Surgery, and one more high-ranking doctor are found dead from poisonous candy and the twins have vanished from their rooms. Panic spreads but neither the killer nor the children are to be found anywhere and the case remains unsolved.

Seven years later, Dr. Tenma, the new Chief of Surgery, receives a patient warning him of a “monster” responsible for the recent strings of serial killings happening all over Germany. That very evening, in a state of panic, the patient tries to escape the hospital and Dr. Tenma manages to trail him to a building under construction and comes face to face with the monster responsible for the recent murders as well as the deaths of the three doctors seven years earlier. It was Johan, the very boy whose life he had saved. Dr. Tenma’s patient is then shot before Tenma’s very eyes.

Now on the run from the police and the KGB who believe Tenma to be the murderer, he must track down the elusive Johan in order to make up for his ‘mistake’ of saving his life so many years earlier and try to prevent there being any more victims. In the process of finding Johan, Tenma uncover the twins’s horrible pasts which shaped Johan into the monster he had become.

Opinion

Because this isn’t the type of manga you can just pick up and continue at your leasure, I decided to read it all in two consecutive sittings. By the time I had finished it, all I could really feel was saddened and empty, and as such, I’m at a loss for proper words.

Monster is by no means a bad manga, actually quite the opposite. It has a take on the importance of identity and the value and meaning of having a name I had never before seen which will definitely strike a nerve if you don’t just read it superficially. It portrays one’s name as being almost the very essense of ‘you’; the diametric opposite of Shakespear’s “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” I suppose (Romeo and Juliette?). It’s more in the lines of Hamlet; “To be, or not to be? That is the question“, but adds on “but with no name to be called by, was I ever to begin with?”

The story is complex, but woven together beautifully and it never ’sidetracks’ without some degree relevance to the main storyline, so I guess in reality, it never really sidetracks at all? Looking past semantics, many chapters -will- focus on events and characters apart from Dr. Tenma and Johan, but it all plays out for a ‘greater purpose’ later in the story so no ties a left untied (except for whatever happened to Karl’s foster parents…). Considering the length and complexity of the story, this is actually a pretty remarkable feat.

If you truely immerse yourself in the storyline, which isn’t difficult as the story really draws you in, you will often find yourself in moments of disgust and disbelief. Not just because of the horrors depicted in the manga, but because it’s written in such a way that it doesn’t seem unlikely that at least some of it was at based on reality, such as the horrors of the East-German Kinderheims (orphanages), the Nazis’ attempts to brainwash children to be perfect patriots, etc.

One thing that did not carry over so well, however, were the religious themes. It is very obvious that Johan is likened to the Anti-Christ, but the manga makes such infrequent and subtle hints at it (except for the first and third-to-last chapter) that you will likely miss them completely. Maybe the mangaka simply didn’t want for the story to become ’supernatural’ rather just border the extremes of human evil.

All in all, it’s an amazing story with some very likable characters (and moustaches!) and I will highly recommend people to read it, especially if you have an interest in human nature and psychology. However, like meantioned earlier, it’s not the type of story you can just pick up and continue, since it’s far too complex, so it would probably be best to wait until you have enough time to read it all in 2-5 sittings.

Doubt

Hecko X — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:06:10 +0000

Doubt (ダウト dauto) is a 20 chapter long manga written and illustrated by Tonagai Yoshiko who is probably most famous illustrating Himatsubushi-hen, one of the manga adaptations of When the Cicadas Cry. The manga manages to combine three of my absolutely favourite genres: mystery, horror, and psychological thriller, so I was excited about beginning to read.

Plot

Rabbit Doubt, a virtual mobile phone game of murder and deception, has become popular among youths. The concept of the game is rather simple:

A group of players, who frequently play Rabbit Doubt with each other, decide to meet up in real life and hang out together. While having fun at a karaoke place, all the players are one by one knocked unconscious by a mysterious person wearing a rabbit head ‘mask’ and brought and confined to a mental hospital.

Early on, they find one of their companions dead with a message on the wall written in blood: “The liar must die!“, the phrase associated with Rabbit Doubt. It is here they realise that they are playing Rabbit Doubt for real and that their only way to survive and escape is to figure out the identity of the wolf before the wolf kills them all…

Opinion

The mystery was extremely well written, to the point that even though I had actually figured out the criminal’s identity before cracking open the first volume, the flow and progress of the story made me seriously doubt (no pun intended) my initial suspicion and I ended up changing my mind about the killer’s identity 2-3 times. To me, that is the mark of a good mystery; that even though you can be so sure of the killer’s identity, the progress story makes you stop, reflect, cast doubt on what you once believed was true, and in that way keep you guessing, but without breaking the flow of the story.

The setting to me was like Liar Game (deception) meets Saw II (people mysteriously connected trapped in a freaky building), but it really worked for the story and had my pulse rising whenever someone turned another dark corner of the hallway or went to investigate something on their own. People who know the film Cry Wolf would probably find that one to be the most similar, especially since the main characters play the same type of game (Mafia) and the overall plot is similar.

By the last 5-6 chapters, I caught myself speed reading several times because I just HAD to know the killer’s identity and motivation. By the time I finally got to the ending, I began having mixed feelings though. It was at the same time very exciting, but also rather stereotypical and a bit over the top. Overall, however, I felt that it was fitting considering the plot, so I guess I’m pretty happy with it.

So in conclusion, I highly recommend this manga if you love psychological thrillers and aren’t too squeamish about dead bodies in manga.

Taiko no Tatsujin DS – TACCHI de Dokodon

Hecko X — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:30:28 +0000

Taiko no Tatsujin DS – TACCHI de Dokodon (“Drum Master DS – Play By Touch”) is a Japan-only game realeased for the Nintendo DualScreen. It is part of a long line of Taiko no Tatsujin games for various consoles (and arcade machines), none of which have been released outside of Japan.

Now, I have known about TnT for several years, but I had always thought that it could only be found in arcades in Japan because of the hardware needed to play it (since half the fun is being able to hit the giant drum). As soon as I found out that it had been released to DS, I just -had- to get my hands on a copy and try it out~!

Gameplay

The gameplay is very much like other music/rhythm games; a note slides by the screen and when it reaches the hit area, you press the correct button. Daiko no Tatsujin is however limited to two commands; top of the drum (orange faces) and edge of the drum (blue faces). The bigger faces require you to hit a specific part of the drum (center of the top and exactly on the edge, respectively), but while all this sounds pretty simple and straight forward, the harder difficulties will seriously mess up your timing.

Song list

The songs are many and varied, both in genre and difficulty. I’ve made a short list below with all the songs (in romaji) divided in the same way they are in the game. I’ve omitted the artist names due to lack of space, but will be adding videos as soon as a mail goes through and I get access to a beta of a plugin~

J-Pop •Sakuranbo •Kibun Joujou↑↑ •Natsu Matsuri •Ketsui no Asa ni •WON’T BE LONG! •Mata Aimashou •DANCE2 feat. Soysauce	Namco Originals •Kimi ni Touch •Mojipittan Medley •KAGEKIYO •Fuuun! Pachi-Osensei •Kurofune Raikou •Taiko Ranbu •Tenjiki 2000	Anime •Touch •Together •Juken Sentai Gekiranger •PreCure 5 Smile GoGo! •Doraemon no Uta •Meitantei Konan Theme •Anpanman no March
Classical •Symphony No. 7 •William Tell Overture •Orpheus in the Underworld •Flight of the Bumblebee •Classic Medley (Wedding version) •Fantaisie-Impromptu	Game Music •Super Mario Bros. •GO MY WAY!! •Namco Medley Variety •Tarako-Tarako-Tarako	Traditional •Mori no Kuma-san •Inu no Omawari-san

Unlockables

It is possible to unlock items in order to customize your character (WadaDon), who is seen dancing on the top screen during songs. In the beginning, you can only change the colour of the drum (as can be seen on the drawing I made), but as you play the game, you will also unlock specific costumes that you can dress WadaDon up in, such as a pirate outfit, various animal outfits, food items, etc.

But costume items aren’t the customize items you get; you will also unlock items to customize the sounds made by your drum when you play it. So instead of the normal taiko drum sounds, you can hear farts, sumo sounds, pacman game sounds, baseball sounds, etc. Some of them are super cool and make the song sound even more awesome 8D

Modes can also be unlocked in order to amp up the games difficulty. In the beginning, four modes are unlocked: Auto, baisoku, sanbai, and nashi (none, i.e. the off setting). Auto is used to get a feel for the song by having the CPU play it perfectly, while baisoku and sanbai increase the speed the notes on the screen fly by with (2x and 3x, respective). You can unlock 4 other modes by clearing the songs (getting an accuracy rating of 80%): Yonbai (4x speed), Doron (removes the coloured face clues, leaving only the below hiragana), Kanpeki (Perfect; song will end if you miss a note), and Abekobe (Inverse; changes the orange Don to blue Ka and vice versa).

Conclusion

I absolutely LOVE the game!! There are a lot of varied and fun songs, and once you start thinking it gets too easy, you can just one-up the difficulty. It even has a secret unlockable difficulty called “Oni” (Ogre/Demon) which is just friggin’ insaaaaaane!

Also, due to the nature of the game, it’s a perfect pick-up-and-play game; there’s no story, nothing you have to know to understand the rest, so you can just pick it up at anytime, play a song or two, and that’s it.

While it -is- a fun time killer for when commuting, there’s not really anything there to motivate you to get better at the game. There are occasional random missions you get with the mail which will let you unlock more customize items or songs + the daily “Test your drum skills dojo”, but that’s pretty much it. I think it would be more fun if you could have missions or objectives to beat on all the songs on various difficulties, since that would want to make you play all the songs several times over and you’d be driven to get a better score or more accurate presses, etc.

All in all, a wonderfully funny game that I heartily recommend. You can play wireless 4-player mode (via download play, I think) so it’s a great games to play with your friends too.

Score
									awesome!

Grand Fantasia

Hecko X — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:40:47 +0000

Grand Fantasia is a anime/cartoon styled MMORPG by Aeria Games, a US subsidiary of Japan based Aeria Inc. that focuses on creating/developing free MMORPGs. While all their games a free to play, they do employ a micropayment system in, i.e. a system where you pay real money for special in-game currency that can be used to purchase especially powerful items and equipment not available for free-players, in order to pay for servers and maintenence. The game itself can be downloaded for free here: grandfantasia.aeriagames.com/download.

Mechanics

The game is relatively light-weight taking up only around 700MB, and that’s fully updated, though this might be because it is currently ‘only’ in its open beta stages. I don’t know when the beta ends, but for now, I’m just enjoying it since it means that less people know of it and that in turn means always tons of space on the server. Speaking of servers, there are currently only two of them (though this is enough), each having four channels. When you create a character (you can create up to three) on a server, you are confined to that server (as far as I know), but you can move freely between the four channels.

Audio/video

While it’s cartoony-esque style might be off-putting for some, I find it an advantage since it translates to less processor butt-rape and let’s face it, we all want to avoid teh butt-rape… That aside, the scenery and details are quite impressive, especially on higher settings. Pallete swaps for monster are however abundant, which is a bit of a shame, but is to be expected. It would’ve been nice with some extra details on more dangerous fiends of the same genus rather than a darker shade of yellow. On the audio side, it is surprisingly good! I sometimes linger around some of the areas just to enjoy the area-specific music.

Character classes

The job classes are more or less the same as they are for most other RPGs, starting with the generic novice. At level 5 you then choose the “path” you want to take by becoming a Fighter (tank), Hunter (ranged), Spellcaster (magic user), or Acolyte (healer). You get a class ugrade again at level 15, which is essentially just a stat boost and more abilities unlocked for purchase, and then the same at level 30, but where you have a choice between two jobs within the same path. E.g for the tank path, it would be: Novice -> lvl. 5 -> Fighter -> lvl. 15 -> Warrior -> lvl. 30 -> Paladin OR Beserker.

Personally, I think the Beserker (tank) or Necromancer (magic user) are the best classes to go after, simply because the defense stat is next to worthless as far as I am able to tell, so pouring everything into offense is the way to go. I think they went with this to maybe balance out the other jobs more, so not everyone would just tank everything, but I honestly don’t know.

Social aspect

I have probably never played an MMORPG that tries harder to force you into being social and marking parties. I mean sure, the game has guild-only missions, but so do many other MMORPGs. Grand Fantasia, however, will have regular missions seperate into 3-5 parts, where the last part is always a boss fight that you have no chance of winning alone, unless you are the boss’ level x 1½, and even then it’s difficult. So you are essentially forced into forming parties, but since only one person can pick up the mission item, only one person per time can complete the mission, after which, they usually quit the party. So it’s a pretty poor marketing decision to have done this >____>

On the upside, I think they at least somewhat acknowledge the issue, as the regularly have timed Double Experience events where you in the one hour the event is ‘active’, you earn double exp for any kill and therefore level faster.

Sprites

A feature I had never seen before was the Sprite system. The easiest way for me to explain sprites are that they are in-game Tamagochis crossed with Pokémons or something. Why I like this system is that while many MMORPGs will have you waste time doing mundane things such as harvesting, foresting, mining, etc., these things are all performed by the Sprites in exchange for a very small fee (which you usually earn back by killing a low-medium level monster).

In addition to doing these mundane things, they can also perform alchemy and even forge armors and weapons. One sprite is however confined to forging one type of weapon or armor, e.g. only tank armor or only magic armor, etc. But the smart thing is that in addition to the Sprite you get in the beginning, which is also able to evolve at higher levels, you can also summon two additional sprites with special summoning items and have them forage for you as well.

There’s a bit more to the Sprite system, such as caring for the sprites, training them, and summining them to give your character stat boosts, but I’d rather not go into that much detail. You’ll find out when you play it.

Conclusion

Grand Fantasia is a fun game that tries to allocate the mundane chores to a pet system which actually works rather well. It also contains several interesting features not mention in the review, such as a player auction (in addition to just selling stuff at stores), mounts, PvP battles and PvP Wars, etc. because I simply didn’t have the time to cover all that. It is, however, advised that you start playing with some of your friends as many missions require parties to successfully pass, and the only guarantee of an effective and consistent party is to play with at least 2-3 people you know in advance.

Apart from that, it is an entertaining games with a few twists that sets it apart from many other cartoony MMORPGs, and with it’s relatively small file size, you should definitely give it a chance. While the missions might become a bit mundane in the long run if you’re playing solo, the nice surroundings and fantabulous music almost makes level grinding bearable. If you reach level 10 and still don’t think the game is something for you, then I’m sorry for having wasted your time, but personally, I think you can get at least a few weeks of playtime out of this game, probably months if you join a good guild.

Score
								Totally	awesome!

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Hecko X — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:52:22 +0000

I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie yesterday with Nat, Marie, and Kaiki and it was FANTASTALICIOGASMIC!! Yes, it was so good that I have to make up new words to try to explain how good it was! I had originally intended to go watch it with Nemu, but she unfortunately had already planned to go watch it with her family which was a bit “baaaaw” for me, but watching with these three lovely ladies was quite alright by me too XP And in any case, I hadn’t seen Nat and Marie in ages and I had to give Kaiki something anyway =3

Portrayal

Back to the movie~! Now, despite being an avid mystery lover, I have generally steered clear of Sherlock Holmes movies and series because, quite frankly, I find that they portray him as a humourless pansy. They never seem to explore his friendship with Watson (or Watson himself), his quick wit with comebacks, his fighting and martial arts prowess, and his complete disinterest in people and the social interaction. This movie changed all that by showcasing Holmes as more of the disorganized, brilliant mind that he is and makes better use of all of his (physical) abilities.

There was only one thing missing for it to have been the God honest portrayal of Holmes and the movie teased me about it in a scene! >:3 In one of the scenes, Holmes hadn’t had a case for three months, I think it was, and was going crazy about it. Watson tells the landlady to get Holmes something to calm him down and get his mind off things, and I immediatly thought “FINALLY! A movie where you see Holmes shooting morphine or cocain like he does in the stories“, but alas, she brought him tea… =.=; Watson does however note at one point that Holmes had been ingesting something that is normally used for eye surgery, and that’s probably the closest I’m gonna get for now…

Watson is also more honestly portrayed; rather than a bumbling idiot of a sidekick that he is usually portrayed as in the old pre-WWII movies, he is shown as quite capable at deductive reasoning (like in the books), able to utilize his great medical knowledge, seeing that he is a doctor, and as a man of action mirroring his past as a military man (I’ve read that he was also portraid in this manner in the 1984 TV series, which unfortunately never aired here in Denmark).

Watson’s vices are also portrayed, such as his gambling addiction which I found to be a nice touch. So I rather enjoyed that Watson was given more depth in this movie and was somewhat of a foil to Holmes, rather than being shown as a sort of incompetent follower without a mind of his own. His more natural sense of humour, rather than the exaggerated clowning about from the old movies, was also hearts; Nat and I laughed ourselves silly whenever Holmes and Watson started arguing.

Story

The story is original, i.e. not based on a book by Sir Conan Doyle, and so is the lead villain, Lord Blackwood. I’ve had a little trouble placing the movie in the Holmes canon, but given the events, I’d say it takes place right around the the time of conclusion of the case in the book “The Case of Four“, based on Watson’s relationship with his fiancé. In “our time”, that would make it around 1886-1887.

The story itself was quite well-written and rather exciting leading up to a great conclusion at the very climax of the movie. Some of the riddles were however redundantly simple, such as the secret behind one of the character’s death and resurrection, but overall, the mysteries had me sitting on edge.

The dialogue was absolutely delightful and humorous and I was laughing myself silly at the dry wit of the two main characters and their bickering. The action and effects were amazing and they took good advantage of recent trends seen in shows such as Discovery Channel’s “Time Warp” where everything is in super slow motion.

But like there’s something for “the common man” who doesn’t know much about Sherlock Holmes canon, there are also easter eggs and nods that you simply CANNOT get if you aren’t an avid Holmes fan and know of the mythos and habits of the two characters. For instance, at the end of the movie there is a short (10-15 second) dialogue involving the notes and journals Watson made of the adventures he’s had with Holmes; a nod to how the original stories were always written from Watson’s perspective as he was chronicling them.

Conclusion

An absolutely delightful movie and probably the best one of 2009 (Avatar is probably the most visually beautiful though). It has humour, action, mystery, more action, witty punchlines, awesome effects, and is just overall lovely~. If you haven’t watched it already, I advise you to do so, IMMEDIATLY!! And don’t listen to those BS “professional” critics who are completely biased and have to nitpick at like EEEEEVERYTHING while seemingly having forgotten how to simply sit back and enjoy a movie for what it is.

Oh, and the ending so TOTALLY segweys into introducing a sequel, so I’m totally looking forward to it already! ♥♥♥

Tekken 6

Hecko X — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:34:05 +0000

Tekken 6 was released a few days ago in Europe (October 30th), and I of course had to get my hands on a copy. My first impression of the game was “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WTF HAPPENED!? D=“, since the changes were immense. Not including the graphics upgrade (which as absolutely STUNNING!!), new stages, and six new characters, all of the movement lists have gotten a major overhaul.

Estimations: 70% of moves have gotten new animations, 40% have gotten extended by an extra punch, kick, shoulder, whatevs, 20% of old moves have gotten new commands (with new moves taking over the old commands), movement lists have been expanded by 10 percent with entirely new moves, and about 95% of all moves have gotten new properties since Tekken 5. Needles to say, I was fucking confused when playing Bryan for the first time and he didn’t do most of the things I wanted him to O.o

Offline Mode

One of the things Namco advertised with before Tekken 6 was released was that time released characters was now a thing of the past and that Tekken 6 would have all characters available right from the get-go. This was only partially true. In all the important modes (arcade, vs, online battle, etc.) all the characters were indeed unlock from the second you load the game, which is a BIG plus.

However, none of these modes will unlock ending movies or prologues. To do this, you will have to go through the all new mode called Scenario Campaign (it’s like Tekken Force mode, but with a storyline), wait until you actually encounter that person as the stage boss and then defeat them before they’re unlocked in the Arena (the T6 version of Story Mode, or something :/), which you then have to play through with the character in order to get the ending movie. Big sigh, since to unlock all 38 characters, you have to go through like storyline 35 stages (about 3-7 hours, depending on how good you are) and three bloody annoying bonus stages. Also, like 70% of all the achievements are unlocked via SC, so you are pretty much forced to play it if you want endings, prologues, and achievement points…

Despite this, the story of Tekken 6 and Scenario Campaign is actually pretty good considering it’s a versus fighter game, and it’s much better rounded off than previous Tekken games. Another thing I liked very much about Scenario Campaign is that it lets you pick up items (random drops for defeating enemies) for the character you are playing as, which means you get to save a ton of money on custom parts for your favourite character’s outfit. And yes, I am SO pretending to be X-Zibit in “Pimp up mai Mokujin” 8D

Online Mode

Not owning a PS3, and thus not having been able to play Tekken online before, I was ecstatic to finally be able to play against awesome Tekken players from around the globe, or at the very least Europe. However, while I was, and still am, happy about the online feature, it has several flaws that needs to be fixed as well as one thing that strikes a nerve with all online fighting game players; movement lag. For those of you reading that don’t know what movement lag is, it is when you input a movement command on your controller, but the character doesn’t perform the action until a few milliseconds later.

Regardless of how great the connection with the other player was, I always encountered movement lag. Some times bearable, most of the time not. Out of 10 matches, 1 would have movement lag of ≤0.1 seconds, 2-3 would have movement lag of 0.1-0.4 seconds, and the rest would be >0.4 seconds (a recent match I played had a full second of lag!). Now, for people not really into the game, something like 0.4 seconds may not sound like much, but I’ll break it down to you.

In Tekken, the difference between a win and a loss often literally lies in a single frame of frame advantage. There are 30 frames in a second (the game is in 60 hertz), i.e. a single frame is 0.0333 seconds. So for any player who plays with a defensive (turtle) or interruptive (poker; breaking the opponents flow with quick jabs) style, even a 0.1 second movement lag can be friggin’ devastating. Aggressive players can usually use this to their advantage since even if the defending player sees the attack and responds to it, due to movement lag, jack shit happens in time and the move will connect, so you can bet your ass they’ll spam attacks you otherwise wouldn’t have problems countering (see example of this in the video on the left).

To make matters worse, you can’t search for opponents based on their connection to you like you can in e.g. Street Fighter IV. This is especially crappy in ranked matches, since you don’t wanted to be a turtle or poker and then end up against someone with a shit connection and lose just because of that. If you lose, it should either be because the opponent had more skill or luck, not because of fucking movement lag and an opponent spamming shit you respond to in time, but jack happens. Hopefully, Namco will realise this and add the search option in a future update. EDIT: I heard today that an update was in the works to “improve the online game experience for players of Tekken 6“, so I hope that is what the update is about. EDIT 2: It was \o/ The game is getting an extra half heart.

Despite the issues, I still very much(!!) enjoy being able to play online and have had several enjoyable matches. But again, because of these things, I strongly recommend that if you find an opponent you don’t lag against, make them a preferred person, make them your online buddy, do WHATEVER to make sure you can play some online sparring matches with them every now and again, because the CPU will often fall for things no human would fall for, and often block things most people would never anticipate.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention: Back in Tekken 4, it was possible to save the replays of a battle. That feature is now back, and I LOVE IT!! It only applies to Ranked Matches though, which is a bit =( but I get by on it. What’s even more awesome is that you can make them available for download so your friends (and other peepz) can watch your matches as well (and it’s all lag free, even if the match wasn’t!) 8D You can also download the ghosts (an AI that plays and reacts in theoretically the same way its owner does) of your friends, but you can unfortunately only play against them at random, which is a bit sux.

Achievements

There are a grand total of 50 achievements, 45 of which are offline (worth 900 points), and the remaining five are online (worth the last 100 points). With the exception of maybe four of the achievements, no real skill is needed to get them and you can do it in less than a day if you really wanted to. So if you are just an AP harvester, this would be a good game to rent for 800-ish quick points. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, the easy achievements also mean no bragging rights for being awesome and unlocking some semi-impossible “Break the Survival Counter by winning the 1,000th survival match in a row while only using a basic, standing left jab for attacking” achievement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, awesome game, albeit somewhat flawed. I absolutely love that you can save, upload, and download replays, and that you can get customize items by just playing Scenario Campaign. Another great thing was that ending movies would randomly unlock after completing SC, which is great since many players have those 7-8 characters that they just CANNOT play for shit with, so defeating Cheaposaurus Rex (aka Azazel) with them would otherwise have been a pain.

Score
									Awesome.

Achivement points gotten	# of Achivements gotten	Game “status”
1000 Points	50 out of 50	Playing now and again

Scribblenauts

Hecko X — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:06:55 +0000

This is probably gonna be a super short review, because frankly speaking, the game was a major disappointment. Some of you may recall how super psyched I was about the game back in June, if you’ve been following the blog for that long or just like going through old posts, but the game did not live up to my expectations at all.

The game itself is pretty innovative. You are given a goal that you need to accomplish in order to collect a starite. In order to accomplish the goal, you write objects which then suddenly appear out of thin air, ready for you to use (trademarked objects, anything intangible, and profainity are no-noes though). The concept of this is actually pretty amazing, since it means that you can solve a puzzle in whatever way you wish, as long as you end up with the starite and don’t break the guidelines given for the stage or die.

To show off the inovation and free range of the game, I’ve added the game trailer to the left in which Maxwell (the player character) has to get a starite stuck in a tree. Other than the was shown in the trailer, you could also get a jetpack and fly up an grab it or have a lumberjack cut down the tree with an axe, etc. There are 100s of puzzles to solve, but while it all looks good on paper, in reality, it’s not that much fun or diverse. Why? Because approximately 80% of the levels just require either a) a flying means of transportation, a weapon, and a wetsuit; or b) a leashed Cthulhu to kill every in the level, so that is probably what most people are gonna keep using. Only few stages require you to think outside the box.

A thing I found to be a major issue in the game was the lack of direct control over Maxwell. You control him by simply tapping where you want him to go and he’ll go there. That might sound pretty simply, but often times, he’ll completely spaz out, jump around like a retarded monkey on crack, knock over everything you’ve carefully set up and you’ll have to start all over. Needless to say, that friggin’ suck donkey balls, and I’ve probably had to redo dozens of stages because of the crack addicted monkey ‘tard going ballistic on me when I wanted him to move five milimetres further to the right because he was in the way.

Truth be told, I’ve probably ended up spending more time just writting random stuff in sandbox mode just to see if it exists or trying to make some joke pose, e.g. I had Maxwell be on a boat with two rappers, with emphasis on ‘had’, since he spazzed out, pushed the two other characters overboard, fell in the water, and capsized the boat. Why did this happen? I simply wanted him to move a bit more to the left. DIRECT CONTROL, PEOPLE!!

In the end, I give it 4½ hearts because while I love the concept of the game, the lack of direct control and the extremely high frequency of Maxwell spazzing out making you waste time redoing the level, and the lack of having to use anything other than a jetpack and a shotgun just kills all the fun; it goes stale way too fast. Good for a two-day rental, not for a buy. P.S. No, Chuck Norris wasn’t in the game… =.=;

Score

Yokai Attack!

Hecko X — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:17:51 +0000

Yiiiiir, I just got this awesome-tastic book in the mail! Well, I actually got it yesterday, but when I got home I fell asleep almost immediately, so I didn’t really have a look through it until a few hours ago. The full title is “Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide” with the Japanese subtitle (seen in the red box) being “Yokai Survival Guide for the Sake of Foreigners“, unless my Jap is a bit off ^^’

It’s a super fun and informative book by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt(+Ctrl+Del XD), with illustrations by Tatsuya Morino. The illustration are actually really great, and they’ve inspired me to expand my AniBlobs! series with a YōkaiBlobs! series. I actually already drew a Kappa design when I ordered the book XD

Anywho, the book has 42 entries, a few of which have more than one yōkai in it, and is about 185 pages long. Every entry contains general information about the yōkai (name, height, weight, habitat, ‘claim to fame’, how to survive an encounter with it, etc.) as well as an illustration on the entry’s second page. All yōkai and information in the book stem from actual Japanese myth and culture, i.e. nothing was ‘made up’ by the authors just for the sake of the book.

A thing that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE ♥ about the book is the page layout. It seriously looks like the book was printed, and then someone went through it and added notes with a pen in the paragraphs, or notes on a post it an put it on the page, stapled a pieced of extra info onto it, attached a drawing to the page with a paper clip, or just glued something on. It works REALLY well with the book and this break from complete page-layout uniformity makes the book itself just seem that much more interesting.

A very nice touch that I also found very enjoyable is the contrast of styles in the more cartoony-ish drawings by the book illustrator, Tatsuya Morino, that are featured on page two of every entry vs. the centuries old ukiyo-e illustrations (often, though not always, by 18th century Japanese scholar and artist of Japanese folklore, Toriyama Sekien) typically seen on page three or four of an entry.

All in all, it’s an absolutely marvellous book. If you want to find out more about it and buy it yourself, you can read more about it on Yokai Attack!’s website. I really hope they make a sort of sequel, since I really missed seeing several semi-famous yōkai in the book, such as the Yuki-onna (and in extension maybe the Tsurara-onna), Yama-uba, Hone-onna, Tsuchigumo, etc. In any case, it’s a great book, go get it! >:3

One Outs

Hecko X — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:33:30 +0000

The Boring Info	The Characters	The Terms	The Songs	The Opinion
—	Tokuchi Toua Kojima Hiromichi Owner	One Outs Contract	Bury Moment	—

The Animoo

Kojima Hiromichi is the clean-up batter (the 4th one to bat in the rotation and usually the strongest batter on the team) for the professional baseball team, the Lycaons. Thirty years prior to the main storyline, the team had their very first Japan Series Championship, but has since then fallen into a slump and become the worst team in the baseball series. Kojima, despite his amazing talent for batting which have earned him several awards, has never been able to win the championship with his team, which had earned him the nickname of the “unlucky genius batter.”

While on a mini-training camp in Okinawa, Kojima’s life was to forever change when he encounters Tokuchi Toua, the undefeated king of the game called “One Outs”, a one-on-one duel between a pitcher and batter. Despite only throwing relatively slow fastballs at easy courses, Tokuchi could seemingly read the mental state of his opponent and create a trap from their intentions, thus always coming out on top. But in the battle between the pitching prodigy and the genius batter, how would Tokuchi fare..?

The Boring Info

•The anime is 25 episodes long and based on the manga by Shinobu Kaitani of the same name.
•The anime ends long before the championship finals which has caused many fans to demand a second season. I heard a rumour one such being in the works, but honestly think it was just wishful thinking. I, personally, would have loved for the story to have gone on. I actually don’t even know how the manga ends :/
•It was announced that Shinobu Kaitani, the mangaka of One Outs, was going to relaunch One Outs in time for the premier of the anime in October last year. I have however been unable to find any information regarding its progress.
•A man bearing likeness to Owner (as well as having the same family name) appeared in the second chapter of Liar Game – Roots of A, another manga by Shinobu.

The Characters

In snack-sized bits. Click names to see images.
•Tokachi Toua – Tokuchi is a fearsome pitcher who, despite never throwing any breaking balls (it’s not that he doesn’t know how, he just opts not to) and having a fastball of only about 120 km/h (which is rather slow for a fastball, which is usually +150 km/h), he has never lost in a game of One Outs (a ‘duel’ between pitcher and batter). By the time he faces off against Kojima for the first time, he had the impressive record of 498 straight wins, 0 losses. He achieved this amazing record from his incredible insight of the human psyche and unwavering spirit (which he honed through a life of gambling) and his ability to induce chaos into the minds of his opponents. He is extremely observant of things regular people would pay little to no attention to, which makes him all the more fearsome.

•Kojima Hiromichi – Kojima is the cleanup batter for the Lycaons and an amazing baseball player whose batting talent has been recognized by many top teams as well as the baseball federation. In his 21 years with the Lycaons, he has been awarded “Rookie of the Year“, “RBI Leader” (seven times), “Home Run King” (five times), “Batting King” (eight times), and “Triple Crown Winner” (twice). Despite this, he has never been able to win the Championship with his team. It is on Kojima’s recommendation that Tokuchi is allowed to join the team.

•Owner – The owner of the Lycaons. I honestly forgot his name since he’s only refered to as “owner” anyway. Anywho, despite being the owner of the Lycaons, he couldn’t care less about how they perform as long as they rack in the dough. To him, the team is just a way of making money and outweighing the losses from his other businesses (due to the recession of the 90s). Since signing on Tokuchi to the team and losing vast amounts of money due to Tokuchi’s salary contract, he tries to sabotage Tokuchi at every chance he gets, e.g. by making him pitch all innings in three consecutive games, in order to earn his money back.

The Terms

One Outs Contract
The One Outs contract, referred to also as simply “the contract”, is a 100% performance based contract rooted in gambling concerning Tokuchi’s salary for the year (as opposed to a ‘fixed’ yearly salary). It relates directly to the amount of outs he scores versus the amount of runs he gives up. For each out he earns, he earns 5 million yen to his salary, while for each run he gives up, he must pay 50 million yen (which would’ve left 80% or more real-life pitchers in debt back in 1996). When the initial contract was made, this was all it says, but after the first game where Tokuchi shut out 21 players (earning him 105 million yen), the subsequent perfect game (no batter of the opposing team reaching a base) and remaining pre-season matches, the owner added the following clauses to the contract for sake of ‘clarification’:

1) Always follow orders from the dugout (i.e. pitch when told to pitch, regardless of situation or time, stop only when told to stop). Breaking the clause results in a fine in the amount of 500 million yen. Being unable to follow orders due to own negligence (e.g. being thrown out of the game by the umpire or being sick or injured or anything else that prevents Tokuchi from pitching when he is asked to pitch) still results in the fine.

2) A run is any run, not just an earned run. This essentially makes Tokuchi responsible for all runs lost during the time he is on the mound, even if e.g. it is by defensive error (the ball passing a field player or a player dropping the ball or similar which gives the runner more time to reach the plate).

3) The contract rate can be adjusted depending on the importance of the game. While the ratio remains at 1:10, the rate can go up or down depending on how important winning the game is for the team’s standing in the league. E.g. for an unimportant game, it can drop to 2.5 million yen per out vs 25 million yen per run while for an important game it can be 20 million yen per out vs 200 million yen per run. The owner will decide this prior to each game and phone it in.

4) Do not reveal the existence of the One Outs contract to anyone. Breaking this clause invalidates whatever was earned up to that point as well as induces a fine of 500 million yen.

The Songs

Bury
Bury is performed by Pay money To my Pain, also referred to simply as P.T.P. The song is sung completely in English which is apparently the modus operandi of this nu metal band. I loved it from the moment I heard it and opted to hear it every time I watched a new episode, rather than just skipping it. Some of you may even recognize it as the song that made it to number 1 in Music of the Moment #8. I can’t really explain why I like it; I think it isn’t so much the meaning of the lyrics as it is the music and the way it is sung that just appeals to me somehow. Even now, more than 6 months after hearing it for the first time, I still listen to it on a daily basis.

Moment
Moment is performed by Tribal Chair. It stays in the same genre and mood of the intro, and it is in all respects a good song, but for some reason it just didn’t appeal to me in the same way that Bury did.

The Opinion

It. Was. AWESOME!! I actually watched it ages ago, while it was still airing on Japanese TV, but didn’t write a review becaaaaause… Well, I kinda forgot and then assumed I already had written one since I planned on doing it the day after the last episode aired, so yeah ^^’ Anyway, I re-watched it just recently and I still think it’s amazingly awesome! It is probably on of my favourite anime ever, second only to Bartender, and a very close second at that! The first two-three episodes might be a bit slow, but will give you a decent idea of what will be in store for you. It then picks up the pace with the remaining episodes being brilliantly thought out and exciting to watch (the third in-season game between the Lycaons and the Mariners being my absolute favourite since it was so extremely far from conventional [boring] baseball).

The first thing people will notice is probably just how much Yoichi Hiruma of Eyeshield 21 physically, and to some extent mentally, resembles Tokuchi (at least that’s what I did, though I never noticed all the other resemblences). And just for the record, it’s Hiruma who looks like Tokuchi, not the other way around; the One Outs manga pre-dates Eyeshield 21 by half a decade (get it right, people! >:3). Anywho, the awesomeness of Tokuchi does not end there; he has the same type of insight in the human psyche as Akagi from Akagi, and whenever he ‘does his thing’, the anime gets the same atmosphere of “O.O!!“-suspense as in Kaiji. So if you loved either of those shows, then you should definitely watch this one (or vice versa)! Coincidentally, the same seiyuu voices all three characters (Akagi, Kaiji, and Tokuchi).

Now, I don’t usually watch sports anime for the same reason I don’t usually watch real sports on TV; I find it mind-numbingly boring. One Outs, however, breaks the mold of more conventional baseball anime, like e.g. Major (where coincidentally, the main character also didn’t throw anything other than a fastball, at least not for the first 4-5 seasons), since rather than relying purely on throwing strength or a wide variety of throws, psychology and mind games play major parts in defeating the other team. This makes the show that much more interesting since traditional baseball, for me, is just a bunch of guys hitting a ball and running in diamond, some being a bit luckier or more talented than others. Sure, it’s fun to play, but as an audience member, it’s so extremely boring and uniform that it makes you want to knock yourself out and spare yourself the agony. One Outs, however, manages to keep it fresh by always adding different challenges and obstacles that must be approached in new and different ways, often requiring taking unusual advantage of the rules or thinking way outside the box.

Sure, the show ‘lacks’ a few things; there isn’t any real depth to the characters, there’s no fan-service for all the closet-perverts, no life-altering themes, and so on. But the thing is, you don’t really miss any of it and adding it would seriously screw over the show. All those things are to One Outs what breaking balls are to Tokuchi’s throwing arsenal; completely unnecessary. You watch the series for essentially one reason and one reason only: You want to see Tokuchi do his thing and completely destroy the other team. Nobody wins, but him >:3

ROOKIES

Hecko X — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:24:38 +0000

Main cast of ROOKIES

Futakotamagawa high school was one victory away from being able to go to Koshien when an unintentional beanball enrages the player at bat who then severely injures the pitcher when he came over to apologize. This sparks off a huge brawl between the two teams and as a result Futakotamagawa is suspended from any tournaments for six months. All the 3rd and 2nd year students quit the team and the baseball clubhouse now becomes the hangout for the delinquent team members who caused the fight.

Enter Kawato Kouichi, a newly hatched teacher of Modern Japanese with a positive outlook at life and a firm belief that any dream can be achieved if one simply puts in the effort. As such, he choose to become a teacher in order to help young people find and achieve their dreams. He is hired by the principle of Futakotamagawa high school (who has a hidden agenda of his own) after an incident at a former institution made it impossible for Kawato to get a job anywhere as a teacher. He is put in charge of the class the delinquents are in and later also becomes the advisor for the baseball team, which causes major friction. Nevertheless, Kawato is intent on helping the baseball team re-discover their dream of going to Koshien and achieving it.

General info

Correlation chart

•ROOKIES is 11 episodes long and was broadcast on TBS from 19-Apr-2008 to 26-Jul-2008. It was fan-subbed by the groups Skewed Studios and TimelesSubs.
•The drama is based on the manga of the same name by Morita Masanori. I saw the drama before reading the manga, but while I found the drama more emotional, the manga was a lot funnier.
•The series spawned a special and I’m 90% sure the final episode of the series also said something about a movie.

Theme Song

The theme song is entitled Kiseki (Miracle) and was written and performed by GReeeeN, which is an awesome group in my opinion. After hearing the song for the first time, it became an instant favourite and to this day, I still listen to it quite often. The lyrics a quite beautiful and the music and singing is amazing. Hard to believe that the members of GReeeeN are dentists in everyday life, no? XP While the song *does* have an original MV, I chose not to use it because the intro is a bit long-winded :/ However, if you wish to see it though (with karaoke and translated lyrics), just click here.

Opinion

ROOKIES is, to put it simply, a quite amazing series. I laughed, I cried, and I absolute loved Kawato for his awesomeness. In a sense, he reminded me of a more scholard version of Onizuka Ekichi (in Great Teach Onizuka), but with the same kind of love and care for his students. His tendency of quoting famous quotes from time to time was a detail about his character I found a bit funny, yet oddly admirable since it shows that he actually *does* understand his students.

Like I mentioned earlier, I have both watch the drama and read a few volumes of the manga, ROOKIES. Because the manga is in drawn format, the characters can get a bit more extreme with their facial expressions and the stuff they say which makes it all the more funny, but the drama sticks extremely well to the original storyline (with only minor antithetical changes) up until the conclusion of their first practice match after which it skips all parts that aren’t major events or directly related to baseball and reaching Koshien.

The drama does a great job of drawing out the atmosphere, and while it skips some parts of the manga that deal with character exploration and development, it still manages to give you still get a good feel for the characters and why the act the way they do and the baseball club members’ desire to change their delinquent ways. This may in part also be thanks to their great acting, though I admittedly did feel that the guy playing Shinjo overacted a few times.

All in all, it’s a great drama (and manga) that I warmly recommend that people should watch. If you’re a bit of a mushy, sentimental type (like me), then I recommend having a box of tissues ready or something because while the overall tone is light and humorous, it really has its moments.

First Episode

Galileo

Hecko X — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:55:02 +0000

嘘を突く謎を解く (Attack the lies, solve the riddles)

Galileo was the first J-Drama that I actually watched on my own accord, rather than because I was with friends who wanted to watch something, so I might be somewhat biased. Just pointing that out now. But I might start reviewing J-Dramas for a little while since I’m taking a break from anime, so hope you’ll enjoy this substitute.

Anywho, Galileo features Fukuyama Masaharu as Yukawa Manabu (nicknamed Henjin Garireo [weirdo Galileo]), an eccentric, sporty, genius physicist and university associate professor with a knack for solving mysteries. While usually level-headed and purely logical, two things will set him off; claiming that something is impossible and beautiful women (my kind of guy XD). During the course of the series, he is dragged away from his duties as a university professor and talked into helping hot-blooded rookie cop, Utsumi Kaoru, portrayed by Shibasaki Kou, solve ‘impossible’ murder mysteries.

General info

Relations chart, translated by jade_frost

•Galileo is 10 episodes long and was broadcast on Fuji TV from 15-Oct-2007 to 12-Dec-2007. It was fan-subbed by the group SARS.
•All 10 episodes are based on the first two novels in the Galileo mystery series, “Tantei Garireo” (Detective Galileo) and “Yochimu” (Foresight Dream). The novels were written by Higashino Keigo.
•The series spawned a special called Galileo Φ: Episode Zero which takes place three years before the main series and revolves around the case that is sometimes referenced in the main series.
•A movie called Yougisha X no Kenshin (Suspect X’s Devotion) and is a continuation of the series. It is based on the third novel in the Galileo series of the same title.

Theme Song

The theme song is entitled KISS shite (kissing) and was written by Fukuyama Masaharu (who also plays the guitar and sings backup in the music video) and is performed by KOH+, which is Shibasaki Kou’s stage name. The song in itself is decent, though I admittedly liked the intro music better (the one that also plays when Galileo gets his ‘epiphanies’). I thought it was pretty cool that the two main characters of the show are also the writer and performer of the theme song though.

Opinion

I myself, with my somewhat limited knowledge of physics, found the series to be extremely good for the same reason that I loved watching Columbo as a kid (and still do, actually). You don’t watch the show to figure out who the killer is, since that usually becomes blatantly obvious within the first 10 minutes. You watch the show see how Galileo figures out what truly happened; how the murders were committed.

The only ‘bad’ thing I can say about the series is that because of the scarcity of revealed information and the high amount of specialized knowledge required, it essentially becomes impossible for the viewer to guess along. On the plus side though, this makes things that much cooler when Galileo puts all the pieces together and it allows you to get fully absorbed in the things he does.

Another thing I found cool where the references to physics and events; being the kind of person I am, I would usually watch one or two episodes and the use the next hour or two refreshing my physics knowledge (since I used to be quite good at physics, but have shamefully forgotten almost everything I learned).

On a more personal note, for some reason, it bugged the crap out of me that whenever he had an ‘epiphany’ Galileo always wrote the denominator first… However, I would love to see a mathematician go over the equations Galileo always writes to see if they actually make sense or if they are just random.

First Episode

As something a bit different from my anime reviews, I’ll be posting the first episode of the series so you can decide whether or not you want to watch it yourself.

Part 1 of 4

@ Yahoo! Video

Part 2 of 4

@ Yahoo! Video

Part 3 of 4

@ Yahoo! Video

Part 4 of 4

@ Yahoo! Video

1408

Hecko X — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:27:06 +0000

I must admit, I was somewhat disappointed in 1408. Admittedly, I had been psyching myself for this movie for quite a while, since it was the one I had planned to watch with South Korea as soon as I could find a cute chick to come along, since he refuses to watch thriller/horror movies with me under any other condition (you pussy >_<). Anywho, since that plan backfired and I couldn't find a chick for him before the movie was no longer shown in Danish cinemas, I was psyched to find it among the many movies I borrowed from my neighbour.

Unfortunately, like I said, it was somewhat of a let-down. If I were to make an analogy, it was like really bad sex; it peaked way too soon and was followed by moments of “!?!? O.o“, things that seemed out of place, dullness, and confusion with an ending that leaves you unfulfilled and disappointed. And like with really bad sex, the only redeeming features were the decent acting skills…

The concept of the movie was pretty simple; John Kusack portrays Mike Enslin, an author of several books about his ‘journeys’ to haunted sites, e.g. “Top 10 most Haunted Hotels.” Anywho, he gets a postcard in the mail about room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York and upon going there finds out that 56 people have died in the room (some of natural causes, others from insane suicides). The hotel manager notes that the room is not haunted per se, there are no ghosts, poltergeists, spirits or similar haunting the room, the room itself is evil… DUN DUN DUUUUUN! [name] of course ignores all warnings, decides to spend a night in the room, and all hell breaks loose, apparently quite literally, as he starts speaking of the circles of Hell (I assume it’s a reference to Dante’s Inferno from “The Divine Comedy“; if you haven’t read it, do so, it’s pretty good: link. I recommend the Mandelbaum edition) and says that he notices some pattern. Regardless, the room begins its reign of terror in order to drive Enslin into suicide, which the room calls “making use of the express check-out service”

What I didn’t like about was that there were inconsistencies left and right, stuff that were never explained, such as the managers role in all of this, since he OBVIOUSLY knows more about the room and what goes on than he lets on, and basic character background info. It’s impossible to relate to the main character’s fears or understand why the things the room shows him have such a devastating psychological impact, because the character himself isn’t explained properly, so several scenes will make little to no sense on your first time watching it, but the movie sucks too bad to warrant a second viewing.

All in all, it was a crappy movie with a total BS ending that actually made me go “what kind of crap is this..?” The concept was decent though, and there’s no doubt that what Enslin experiences would scare anyone enough to make them crap their pants, but since the audience can’t relate to him, it fails as a thriller. Scenes was amazing though, so kudos for being able to pull that off (it was like Jumanji in a single room). So if you’re a thriller movie fan like me, don’t bother with this one, it’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth. If you want to have a fright night with your friends, this shouldn’t be in the movie basket; aside from one “HOLY FUCK, WHERE’D SHE COME FROM!?!?” scene, and the slightly eerie scene (with awesome choreography) that leads right up to it, you’d have more luck getting frightened by Winnie the Pooh in his Cowboy ice cream scoop shoot-off cartoon.

Memory

Hecko X — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:07:59 +0000

When I’m in Serbia, I usually don’t have a lot to do during the day other than sleep, eat, and sleep some more. Since I have no Intarwebs, I can’t do all the usual stuff I do at home, so I usually end up borrowing like 100 movies from the girl next door, since her boyfriend is somehow able to get his hands on quite a lot of movies. Anywho, I thought it would be a shame to not review a few of them, so I’m sitting here aaaat… 4:32 AM, on the laptop I bought for my cousin from my friend for a lunch, since it was broken six ways from Sunday, but it was still a pretty good laptop once it got fixed.

Psychological thrillers is probably my favourite movie genre, but unfortunately, most follow the same template making them fairly easy to predict. The movie “Memory” (based on the novel of the same name) starring Billy Zane as neurologist Taylor Briggs is unfortunately not any different. The tagline “Sometimes, memories can kill” is rather misleading, as there are not any additional murders during the time in which the movie takes place, so there no memories causing any deaths (except maybe one, but that’s a bit of a stretch).

The tagline does tell something about the plot though; the story begins with a guy being chased by a tribe of natives and being forced to ingest a white powder when he gets caught. Dr. [name] is asked to consult at the hospital where the man, after having been found by authorities (or something) has been brought in and it is revealed that the powder had caused cancer (or brain tumours, I forget) to specifically attack the memory centres of the brain. While inspecting the guy’s bag, dr. Briggs cuts his finger on a sharp object hidden in the bag and becomes ‘infected’ with the white powder. From that point on, he starts experiencing vision of child kidnapping and murders occurring before he was born and becomes obsessed with finding out the nature of the white powder and solving the identity of the masked murderer/kidnapper.

I loved the concept of the movie enough to disregard that there was no chance in hell that the powder, consisting mostly of sand, would be potent enough to induce those kind of visions for that long a duration via a transfer in a cut too small to be seen or even start visibly bleeding. I also like that the movie actually had me going for a REALLY long while, but the moment Max died, all the pieces fell into place. So from that point on, everything was just a confirmation of all my suspicions, even the true identity of Stephanie (as soon as you here she’s adopted, it becomes fairly obvious due to the simple fact that it is a manufactured story, so while the odds in real life would be 1 in a gazillion, in a movie, it’s 1 in 1). So I would say that the ending seemed fairly rushed because everything is revealed in literally the last 10-15 minutes of the movie. I would have liked for it to be drawn out a bit longer, so from that, the book might be significantly better. It was not a bad movie though, and if your aren’t a thriller/murder mystery/human psychology nut like I am, you will probably enjoy this movie quite a bit.

Nutrition Matters

Hecko X — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:54:00 +0000

Nutrition Matters is a game in the Body. Mind. Soul. series by 505 Games and was created for both the Wii and the Nintendo DS (I’m reviewing the DS version, though I don’t think there’s much of a difference). The basic concept is pretty good; the game aims to create a comprehensive food diary and provide you with advice on how to lose/gain weight. But the game completely fails at it; in the world of games, it is probably the rough equivalent of the movie Troll 2 (this scene in particular).

Before getting the game, I tried finding reviews, or at the very least a video, of it, but couldn’t find anything. After having tried it, I can understand why; the game is so bad no one would bother wasting their time reviewing it. So that’s why I’ll do it and hopefully save some people a fistful of dollars by having them NOT buy the game.

Anywho, like I said, the game concept is pretty good, so I went in with an open mind and wanted to earnestly try it out. When starting a new game, it asks you for your personal info relative to the aim of the game, i.e. your gender, age (which can’t be below 18, so that’s idiotic development step one), weight, height, waist measurement, the duration period of your diet (can be up to six months), and finally what your target weight is. You then enter the menu, which looked pretty nice actually, so at this point, I had a good impression of the game.

However, after having had my meals, when I had to input the food into my food diary in the daily basic data, I realised how extremely limited the game is. It comes with a pre-made list of about 500-600 dishes that you can choose from, however, you can’t add anything yourself if what you ate isn’t on the list. So say you are like my buddy Aucry, who likes to experiment a bit with dishes, and might make fried noodles with a veggie mix (carrots, corn, eggplant, etc.) and tamagoyaki, with a side of lightly fried leek simmered in rice wine, you’d be screwed six ways from Sunday. Hell, even if you go to McDonald’s you’re screwed six ways from Sunday.

So because it’s so messed up, and that it hasn’t got that many basic ingredients so you could just add the ingredients used in the dishes you made, you have to take the closest thing in a similar food-group which is usually still pretty far off. In the case of the above dish, you’d have to pick stuff like “vegetable pasta”, “scrambled eggs”, and then some random fruit and sauce. All of these will of course have completely different amounts of protein, carbs, fats, etc. than the stuff you ate, even IF you get the calories to match up, which defeats the entire point in keeping a food diary.

Another problem is, I have no idea of what the game bases its data on. For instance, take the data it has on “banana”. It says that “banana” has 75 kcal, but not how much “banana” has 75 kcal. I.e. is it one banana? If yes, what type of banana is it (extra small, small, medium, large, extra large)? Is it 100 grams of banana? Is it one ounce of banana? Ten ounces of banana? A cup of mashed banana? What? When I compared it to a database, I only got more confused, because it doesn’t seem to be any of them. The closest thing was the extra small banana (less than 100 grams), but that then raises questions about the small fruits like grapes since the data there equals to an amount of more than 100 grams.

So being able to change the portion size is completely pointless since you don’t know what one portion is. It might be explained somewhere in the manual, but I never got that :/ But it would seem pointless to have a variable sized portion instead of one based on a constant weight like 100 grams or 10 ounces or something. So the entire food diary aspect of the game is shot to Hell and can’t really be used unless you don’t actually care about the data in which case, why the Hell would you buy the game?

The game flaunts that it gives professional advice, but to access this advice you have to fill out a “basic data” section each day to get advice on that day. This basic data includes stuff like your weight, waist measurement, the number of steps you’ve walked, and your body fat percentage. So in order to fully use the game, you have to spend money on extra crap like a pedometer and a bath scale that measures your body fat percentage. Lulz, WTF?! And what kind of professional advice did it give me? “You are underweight. Keep an eye on your BMI.” Noooooooooooooo, you doooon’t say? Fuck, I totally did not see that coming. What tipped you off? That I my BMI was low and that I wanted to gain 10 kg? A true pro you are… regular Hercules Poirot of the food industry.

So as a food diary, it phails ever so miserably. Its only slightly redeeming feature are the progress graphs, but that doesn’t really help since it isn’t a graph making game. Long story short, save your money. The game doesn’t do anything that you can’t do far more accurately by using nutritiondata.com as a reference for data and then a spreadsheet, and this includes the graphs. So I suggest you do that instead. And use the money you save on not buying the game and get a one-hour consultation with a ACTUAL dietitian (it’s actually cheaper than buying the game!).

Final score: I give it one heart because I liked the graphs, but as for the rest, it phailed miserably, especially since you had to purchase additional stuff to be able to use it properly.

Score

Scribblenauts!? O.o

Hecko X — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:08:51 +0000

So, my Xbox 360 recently got the Red Ring of Death, and of course it happened three weeks after the warranty expired… Anywho, with nothing to do and with no printer to print out the returns label from UPS or the receipt, I went over to Random’s place to have some fun. After catching up and whatnot, we decided to go to MickeyD’s. On the way, we started talking about random things like girls, games, and tournaments; the regular guy stuff. He then tells me about this insanely incredible emergent NDS game called Scribblenauts. He heard about it from Podcasts and E3 videos, and from what he told me, it sounded amazing! I looked it up today on their website, found a few videos on YouTube, and here it is…

Trailer #1	E3 Demo

Like their catchphrase says, it really DOES seem that you can solve everything by writing anything. Profanity and objects that are trademarked does not seem to work though, so a Coca Cola vibrator is probably out of the question, but stuff like the Kraken, God, and even Longcat, have all been implemented in the game. Only your imagination (and trademarks) seems to be the limit! I’m so gonna get this game and try to complete everything with Chuck Norris, if possible XD

Kuroshitsuji

Hecko X — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:21:19 +0000

The Boring Info	The Characters	The Terms	The Songs	The Opinion
—	Ciel Phantomhive Sebastian Michaelis The staff	Contract Seal	Monokuro no Kisu I’m Alive! Lacrimosa	—

The Animoo

Ciel Phantomhive is the sole heir to the Phantomhive noble family’s estate, companies, and wealth after the tragic death of both his parents in an arson. Ciel manages to survive, but is captured and sold as a slave. His buyer bought him for the sake of sacrificing him in an occult group ritual, but desperate to survive and to punish those who have humiliated him and those who killed his parents, he summons and makes a contract with a demon; his soul in exchange for the demon’s services and protection until the criteria of the contract has been fulfilled.

The demon takes on the form of a human and is given the name “Sebastian Michaelis” by Ciel and from that point on becomes the butler of the Phantomhive family as well as Ciel’s bodyguard, completing any order given to him by his master.

The Boring Info

•The anime is 24 episodes long and based on the currently still ongoing manga of the same name by Yana Toboso.
•The title, Kuroshitsuji (黒執事) means “Black Butler“.
•The manga series has, other than the anime, spawned several books, an audio drama, and a game by Square Enix (who also publishes the manga) for the NDS.
•From what I can gather from the various historical events present in the anime series, it takes place from the summer of 1888 (Jack the Ripper appears) and up to early/mid May the following year (completion and opening of the Eiffel Tower).
•A recurring theme in many of the episodes is the music and/or lyrics to the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down“. The lyrics are sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese. I think every stanza was present, scattered among the episodes, except for the last stanza (“Then we’l set a man to Watch“).

The Characters

In snack-sized bits. Images to come.
•Ciel Phantomhive – A 12-year-old Earl and master of the Phantomhive estate that he inherited after the death of his parents. Like his family before him, he serves the Queen as her loyal guard/watch dog, eliminating any proof that may shine a bad light on the Royal Family, so that it never reaches the eyes of the public. As such, he has many ties with prominent figures in the underworld, despite his young age.

•Sebastian Michaelis – A demon with whom Ciel has made a contract. He takes human shape and serves Ciel as his butler and bodyguard. In the anime, his true demonic shape is never fully revealed.

•The staff – Ciel also has a small staff to help maintain his mansion, three of which were hired by Sebastian for their special skills.

Tanaka – The house steward who also served under Ciel’s parents and, though not explicitly stated in the anime, was present during the arson and murder of Ciel’s parents. Despite his title, he does very little around the house, and his job is more or less done by Sebastian. In the manga, it is explained as being because he was stabbed in the back during the arson and is thus unable to perform physical labor. In the anime he is mostly seen in chibi-form, with his non-chibi form being described by the other characters as “Real Tanaka” which apparently runs on steam.
Bardroy – Also called simply “Bard”; Bardroy serves as the cook of the household. He was once a sergeant in the British army whose entire platoon was killed in an ambush when his superior officer overruled him concerning how and where to charge their enemies, despite Bard pointing out that it was an obvious trap. He chose to become a cook because it required patience to master, though because he easily gets anxious due to his past, he ends up trying to prepare food using flame-throwers or sticks of dynamite.
Meylene – The household maid. She is extremely clumsy and wears very thick glasses which she treasures dearly, despite the prescription no longer being sufficient, since they were given to her by Ciel. Before becoming a maid, she was a sniper assassin whose extreme far-sightedness meant she had no use for a scope. She appears to have a crush on Sebastian and has a rather sexually perverted personality in the anime (it doesn’t seemed as strongly portrayed in the manga).
Finnian – Also simply called “Finny”; Finnian serves as the gardener, although he typically ends up destroying the garden rather than tending it. Before being employed by Sebastian, he was held captive and experimented upon by a group of scientist trying to discover superhuman strength. Finny appears to have been a succesful specimen, but managed to escape during which he was approached by Sebastian. He chose to become a gardener because he gets to be outdoors as much as he wants, an option he didn’t have when he was being experimented on.

The Terms

Contract
The Contract is a Faustian Bargain. Upon summoning a demon (or just when approached), the summoner may make a contract employing the services of the demon in exchange for their soul, which is collected when the requirements of the contract have been fulfilled. In the case of Ciel and Sebastian, the contract ends once Ciel’s revenge on the killer(s) of his parents is complete.

Seal
The Seal is like a sort of “signature” for the contract. Both the demon and its “master” get matching seals as a symbol of the demon being bound to its master will. The more obvious the location, the stronger the seal, which makes it easier for the demon to find its master whenever the master requires protection. This, however, also means that harder to escape the demon once the requirements of the contract has been fulfilled. In the case of Ciel and Sebastian, Ciel’s seal is placed in his right eye (which is why he wears an eye patch) and Sebastian’s seal is place on the back of his left hand.

The Songs

Monokuro no Kisu
Monokuro no Kisu (Kiss of Monochrome) is performed by SID. It was the opening song throughout the entire series. It’s an okay song, I suppose, very upbeat, but I just feel it’s a bit mismatched with the animation and actual themes of the anime. If I were to guess a genre from the TV size song alone, without having seen the animation, I would have thought it would go well with a slightly ecchi action anime series with young teens and potentially a mecha or two.

In all honesty, I’m tired and the the animation is hard to explain, so I’m not gonna bother. Just watch it. As far as I can tell, it signifies the contract being made, Ciel and Sebastian’s time together, and then the contract being completed (Sebastian taking Ciel’s soul).

I’m Alive!
I’m Alive is performed by BECCA. It was used as the ending for episodes 1-13 What surprised me about this song is that it is one of the few anime endings/openings I’ve ever heard that was actually written and performed by someone not Japanese. It’s actually a pretty damn good! Almost as if it’s “reaching for Heaven! ♪” Anywho, bad puns aside, I think it’s an excellent song, and if you like stuff like Paramore, you’ll like this too.

The animation is super adorable; it portrays a standard day in the life of Sebastian in a chibi-cinema like way. Chibis ♥

Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa is performed by Kalafina. It was used as the ending in episodes 14-24 (finale). I liked the beginning of the song, very Enya-like (or something; it was familiar at least), and the rest was not bad either, but it didn’t strike me as a song you’d care to listen to unless you were in a specific type of mood. If I were to describe it as an emotion, it would be “energetic depression”.

The animation shows a dead Ciel being transported by Sebastian, in a gondola filled with white flowers, to a small rock island to have his soul consumed as per the their contract.

The Opinion

Kuroshitsuji ended up being one of those “meh” series that start out weak, gets significantly better within the first two-three episodes and maintains that high standard until the finale, at which point it crashes and burns at below mediocrity.

One of the things I absolutely LOVED were the many allusions and depictions of actual historical events true to the era, albeit sometimes a bit altered (naturally). This include, but are not limited to, the killings of Jack the Ripper (correct names of victims and dates of death), the opening of the Eiffel Tower, the Opium Wars (aka the Anglo-Chinese Wars), the introduction of heroin in Britain (called “Lady Blanc”, mistranslated as “Lady Brown”), the character Fred Abberline, etc. However, I only spotted these awesome reference because I actually know Chinese history (due to PALCS during my prep year of Japanese) and some British history as well (due to being bored the weekend after watching “From Hell”). So for people not interested in history, these references are somewhat lost and unimportant.

Other than that, when you get past the first few episodes, it actually turns into a very interesting series. It has a few murder mysteries, some comedy, a bit of perversion here and there, and a cooking contest between a demon and a former savage murderer; what’s not to love? XD The only negative thing about this is that since it does many things, though quite well, it never really immerses itself into a single genre to make it truly great. I for one would have loved the anime to have had a darker, slightly more sinister mood to it, all things considered (Ciel’s past, ties with the underworld, mysterious killings striking panics into the hearts of everyone, etc.). The slightly light, humorous undertone kinda kills the dark aspects of the series, but it is still pretty interesting to follow and a few episodes will have you sitting in suspense; dying to find out what happens next, and the staff members serve as excellent comic relief for a quick laugh every now and again.

The finale is however sub-par, but necessary to close off the storyline. It can basically be described as “shit hits the fan and everyone dies, or not, dun dun duuun” since you don’t really know what happens to people other than Ciel. Also, the climactic battle between Good (albeit mentally unstable) and Evil was pretty anti-climactic… It lasted a full 10 seconds and everything occurred off-camera.

All in all, despite it’s cruddy ending, it’s a series worth watching. On a scale from one to ten, I’d probably rank this at about 7-7½.

Eurovision 2009

Hecko X — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:59:38 +0000

Eurovision 2009 just finished a few hours ago, and the winner was Norway with their song, “Fairytale“! It won with a staggering 387 points (the max possible being 492), the highest score in the history of Eurovision thus far. It apparently also received a landslide victory in Norway, when they were voting on which song should represent them at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, getting a score about three times higher than the first runner-up O.o In contrast with last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, I can actually agree with the choice of the winner this time around. It was a pretty damn good song; the lyrics were cool, the music was catchy, I liked the choreography (even though that shouldn’t matter in a song contest), and it was an all-round hearts song.

However, while I never expected it to win, I’m disappointed that Serbia’s “Cipela” (it means “shoe” XD) didn’t make it through to the final, because I thought it was awesome and funny as hell. Then again, I suspect it never got through because people didn’t understand the lyrics (which makes it… less funny, but the dancing is still <3 XD) and because people aren't used to an accordian being used so dominantly in a song. Having grown up with this kind of music, I've grown accustomed to it though ^^' Anywho, I thought it was catchy as Hell, so it should've gone through, chikushou~!! *pout*

Anywho, for those of you who watched it, who did you think should have won and why? Feel free to write it in the comment section ^^

Rental Magica

Hecko X — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:26:21 +0000

The Boring Info	The Characters		The Songs	The Opinion
—	Iba Itsuki Honami Ambler Katsuragi Mikan	Nekoyashiki Ren Kuroha Manami Adelicia Mathers	Sora ni Saku Faith Aruite Ikou	—

The Animoo

After the mysterious disappearance of Iba Tsukasa, the first president of the magician dispatch service and Mage’s Society known as “Astral”, his son is forced to take his place as president despite having no knowledge of the world magic. He is in fact, quite ironically considering his position and company, not even a mage. Nevertheless, he manages to get himself and his team thrown into various supernatural problems, whether it be intentionally (by accepting a paying job or formal request so the company can meet its quota) or unintentionally (due to his self-sacrificing and always helpful, albeit slightly naïve, nature). These ‘adventures’ become the focus points of the anime series, as well as their clashes with rival companies, and the pasts of the members coming back to haunt them once again.

The Boring Info

•The anime is 24 episodes long and based on a light novel of the same name. The episodes are not broadcast in a chronological order.
•The chronological order of the episodes is: 13, 02, 05, 06, 04, 11, 01, 03, 15, 08, 07, 09, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 21.
•The serie’s finale, episode 21 (broadcast order), has a sequence that features Cannon in D as the background music. This has no relevance whatsoever, I just thought it was kewl.
•Despite the HEAVY use of terms that I’m decently sure a vast majority of the people reading this won’t have ever heard of, I’ve decided to not make a term section. This is simply because that section alone would be several pages long, and I just can’t be bothered. Besides, after each episode, Shinsen Fansubs have been so kind enough as to explain the specific terms used in that respective episode (therefore, watch the versions they subbed), so there’s no real reason for me to do it, especially considering they do it so much better.

The Characters

In snack-sized bits. Images to come later.
•Iba Itsuki – Itsuki is the son of Astral’s first president, Iba Tsukasa, and because of this, became its second president when Tsukasa disappeared. He is a kind, well-mannered, and shy boy who, despite his position as president of a magic rental service, knows very little of the world of magic. He wears a magical eye-patch that seals off his “fairy eye”, called Glam Sight, because of its sensitivity to spell-wave contamination (think “magic radiation poisoning”) and because he is inexperienced in how to use it, which could have fatal consequences. Whenever he does use it, however, his personality changes into something more confident and “leader-like” and he becomes able to see the flow of magic allowing him to give precise instructions/orders to his team.

•Honami Ambler – A childhood friend of Itsuki’s, though he doesn’t remember their time together as children as those memories were locked away. She was present when Itsuki’s Glam Sight became tainted and feels a deep sense of guilt over the incident, as A) she was the one who made him enter the Haunted House where it happened; and B) it became tainted as a result of him trying to save Honami from the spiritual creature that was hunting them. Years later, Honami is a prodigy in the arts of Celtic magic and Witchcraft, and managed to revive the otherwise lost magic art of the Druids in merely two years, a feat that was otherwise described as something that would take even the most gifted an entire lifetime to accomplish.

•Katsuragi Mikan – The youngest member of the current Astral and a Shinto specialist. She is a member of the Katsuragi clan of Shintoist, which she left to prove that she wasn’t just a replacement for her older sister (this is the topic in a two-episode storyline).

•Nekoyashiki Ren – An expert of Onmyouji and a former member of the original Astral. He has four Shikineko (cat familiars) named af the Four Symbols that can aid him in battle.

•Kuroha Manami – The newest member of the current Astral who is employed in one of the first episodes. [spoiler]She is a ghost and can thus only be seen by other ghosts or people with a sensitivity to magic (though, she still sometimes hides from normal people for some reason, even though they can’t see her).[/spoiler]

•Adelicia Mathers – A descendant of King Solomon, thus able to use King Solomon’s magic (summoning demons), and quite skilfully at that. She is the hereditary master of one of Astral’s rival companies, Goetia. She attended the same magic school as Honami and the two consider eachother rivals still.

The Songs

Sora ni Saku/Faith
Sora ni Saku (though I have no idea of how 宇宙 can be read as “sora”), and its English version, Faith, are performed by Lisa Komine. The two songs were used interchangeably and I was unable to find any distinctive pattern in when either was used. It should be noted that while the music is the same, the lyrics are obviously not translations. Anywho, I was actually quite fond of the rhythm and music in the songs, though I admittedly enjoyed the Japanese version a bit more because of her accent. For some reason, it reminded me of D.Gray-man, though I’m not entirely sure why.

The animation more or less does what every opening animation does and showcases the characters. I’m actually starting to wonder why I even write this section when the video is right there :/ Anywho, as something unique, the lyrics appear moving lines forming a cross.

Aruite Ikou
Aruite Ikou (Let’s Go for a Walk) is performed by Jungo Yoshida. The version on the right, however, is the one by the voice actors of the show, since I couldn’t find the real one. I liked this one more anyway =3 The title actually confuses me a bit, since the lyric actually goes “Aruite Yukou”, not “Aruite Ikou”, even though they both have the same meaning and are written as 歩いて行こう

The animation shows all the main characters having gone to rest. It retains the “lyrics flying over the cross” theme of the two openers.

The Opinion

Rental Magica is, in a nutshell, Ghost Hunt, but without all the stuff that makes [certain parts of] Ghost Hunt cool. There’s not thrill, no mystery, no red thread, nothing to make you WANT to see the next episode for any specific reason other than because it’s available. Also, because it isn’t chronological, it’s a pain in the ass to try and watch in the broadcast order. I watched maybe the first seven episodes that way and would probably have choked my computer out of frustration if it had a neck. After that, I watched everything in chronological order.

Also, if you don’t know that much about shintoism, onmyoudo, magic of Solomon, etc., then I strongly suggest you go in with an open mind and ignore any attempt to understand the terms, prayers/mantra, and references made in anime as you will drown in them. For a Westerner, I probably have above average knowledge of Japanese myths, legends, etc., and I was still O.o in many of the episodes. So just accept whatever is thrown your way and if something doesn’t make sense to you, just assume that it’s important and they did whatever they did for a very good reason.

Other than that, it just isn’t a very memorable anime. The characters are very likeable, but the plot, as presented in the anime, is pretty thin and by the time the anime has concluded, there are still a looooot of unanswered questions, loose ends, and whatnot, so the anime just feels incomplete (again, similar to Ghost Hunt). Therefore, save yourself the trouble, don’t watch the anime, read the manga instead.

The only episode I can recommend watching is episode 12, entitled “Seiya ni Sasageru Rekuiemu” (A Requiem Offered on Christmas Eve), which is a fitting title since it aired on December 23. Anywho, I got all teary-eyed when they sang in the church, and it was a damn good song too! ;_; So that episode gets lubz from me also due to the a cappella version of the ending song used around halfway through the episode <3 It is also the first of two episodes where the voice actors are the ones singing the ending theme (and Nekoyashiki's three second solo is to die for XD).

Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World

Hecko X — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:16:22 +0000

Way back, when Kaiki and I were still dating, I figured I would give this anime series a chance, since she told me it was her favorite one ever. However, after watching the first episode, I concluded that while it was an interesting series, it was “heavy”, i.e. it was not the type I wanted to watch by myself, but rather while I was with someone.

I unfortunately never got any further than that first episode, even though it’s been almost a year since I watched it, which is why I haven’t reviewed it ^^’ Luckily for us, Yuan-chan succeeds where I fail and not only watched it the series, but took the time to write the review posted below ^^ It’s better than the reviews I usually write! *envy* Anywho, the fanart above is drawn by her (see more of her art here), just thought it was awesome and should be the first image in the post =3

Info

•Also known as “Kino’s Journey”. The anime is based on a series of light novels by Keiichi Sigsawa. There are also two games and an alternate universe style spin-off series.
•The anime has 13 episodes, with two 30 minute OVAs.

Synopsis

Kino is a traveller – her (yes, Kino is female) life consists simply of travelling around “the Beautiful World” with only a talking motorcycle as a companion. Each episode focuses on her visiting a few “countries”, or telling stories about countries she has visited before. The format is rather episodic, but rather than being arc-based, the stories are linked together by their overarching theme.

In her travels, Kino sees countries with bizarre traditions and amazing technology; horrific, unexplainable tragedies and simple pleasures. She’s always a passer-by – she spends but three days in each location, and is almost never touched by the events that she sees. In this way, she exemplifies a dream of being able to move throughout “a beautiful world” and simply see the sights, rather than being caught up. However bizarre the traditions of each land may seem, they reflect facets of life in our world.

Although the themes touched on in each episode are different, a general one is outright stated by Kino: “Sekai wa utsukushiku nanka nai. soshite sore yueni utsukushii,” “The world is not beautiful. And so this, therefore, makes it beautiful.” Despite the cruelty, violence and unneeded horrors of “the Beautiful World”, there are also many beautiful things which exist within it, and are all the more precious because of the “ugliness”.

Characters

Best not to mess with her

Kino – The young protagonist of the anime, and quite possibly the most awesome Reverse Trap ever. Kino seems to be designed in such a way that anyone will be able to, on some level, relate to her. Perfectly neutral, her defining traits are her love of travelling and how she never judges anyone. Whether this is a good trait or not is left up to the viewer to decide. On a side note, her perpetually neutral expression is rather creepy.

Hermes – What can I say? He’s a talking motorcycle (or Motorrad) and Kino’s only companion on their journey. Hermes tends to be a lot goofier and more “human” (despite obviously being, er, not) compared to the generally solemn Kino. They balance each other out – he provides the speed, she the balance.

Personally, I found Kino a fascinating character – she’s one of the more interesting takes on a True Neutral character. Kino doesn’t “grow” much in the anime: instead, we see what shaped her and how she became a traveller. I was a little disappointed that the backstories of Kino’s “Master” and the original Kino weren’t explored. Hermes provides a nice contrast for Kino, although once again, I wish his story could have been expanded.

Graphics

The animation is distinctly…odd. Kino herself is your basic anime style, while a lot of the “country” characters are drawn in an abstract manner. The landscapes were pretty, but not really anything to go “wow” over. I prefer the official artworks, myself.

Songs

The opening is called “all the way” and is by Mikuni Shimokawa. It’s kind of upbeat with nice instrumental work, but I found it kind of generic. The images are mostly from the anime itself. I liked the ending “The Beautiful World” (sung by Ai Maeda, who voices Kino) more, as it suits the tone of the anime better. It’s a rather quiet and pensive song, with lovely lyrics and a vaguely “traditional” sounding intro. Fitting the subdued tone, the animation features faded images of Kino and Hermes on the background of a landscape.

Final Opinion

I won’t deny it – I loved Kino no Tabi. It’s a very philosophical series, but manages to avoid the tendency of many such works to moralise – instead, the viewer is allowed to make their own decisions about Kino’s experiences. This is a rather heavy series, so I wouldn’t advise watching all of the episodes in a single go. Nor would I recommend it to those who prefer action or a lighter series. For me, Kino’s world, storyline and themes were like a refreshing breeze after so many more story or action orientated series.

The timeline is confusing at first, and it is often difficult to tell which events occur before which. Overall, a very surreal feel is achieved by the series (particularly the “Land of Books” episode), and I loved how many different concepts were examined. The number of unanswered questions left me wanting more, however.

Kino no Tabi is not a series which will have you on the edge of your seat. Its beauty lies in its deceptive simplicity and the themes it tackles, with such a gentle pacing (and yet it never seems slow). The story and world is incredible, and it’s definitely one of the more unique series I’ve watched. By the power of the Flaming Ninja, I implore ye to watch it. O.O

Note: Watch the Japanese version – Hermes’ voice in the English one is very grating. It might also help to think of the countries as separate “universes”, despite resembling towns.

M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » Reviews

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Monster

Plot

Opinion

Doubt

Plot

Opinion

Taiko no Tatsujin DS – TACCHI de Dokodon

Gameplay

Song list

Unlockables

Conclusion

Grand Fantasia

Mechanics

Audio/video

Character classes

Social aspect

Sprites

Conclusion

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Portrayal

Story

Conclusion

Tekken 6

Offline Mode

Online Mode

Achievements

Conclusion

Scribblenauts

Yokai Attack!

One Outs

The Animoo

The Boring Info

The Characters

The Terms

The Songs

The Opinion

ROOKIES

General info

Theme Song

Opinion

First Episode

Part 1 of 6

Part 2 of 6

Part 3 of 6

Part 4 of 6

Part 5 of 6

Part 6 of 6

Galileo

General info

Theme Song

Opinion

First Episode

Part 1 of 4

Part 2 of 4

Part 3 of 4

Part 4 of 4

1408

Memory

Nutrition Matters

Scribblenauts!? O.o

Kuroshitsuji

The Animoo

The Boring Info

The Characters

The Terms

The Songs

The Opinion

Eurovision 2009

Rental Magica

The Animoo

The Boring Info

The Characters

The Songs

The Opinion

Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World

Info

Synopsis

Characters