Ughuu!

Posted by Demian @ 3:43 pm, August 24th, 2006

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Lol Fang-tan

Goddamn that was beautiful. Kyoani are truly gods among men to bring to life such a vivid world as Kanon. This blows the old Kanon completely out of the water and into space with it’s awesomeness. It also helps that all the old VA’s are also there, except the VA for Kyon is doing Yuuichi’s voice. I keep expecting to hear “Ponytails turn me on.” anyway’s in other Haruhi related news has anyone noticed how much young Ayu looks exactly like young Haruhi? I can’t wait for this series to start in the fall, it’s gonna completely eclipse Haruhi with it’s Kanonism(copyrighted).

Below are the scenes I liked the most from the promo’s. A lot of them were similiar to the old show, so I focused a lot on the background scenes that completely left me awestruck.

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Welcome to the Nipponsei Weekly Review

Posted by Demian @ 8:12 am, August 24th, 2006

I’m gonna try and start a weekly column of sort’s where I talk about the current anime related music I’m listening to and review what’s coming out. Here’s my take on this week’s releases that interest me:

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First up is the Welcome to the NHK! soundtrack, dubbed Dark Side ni Youkoso! (Welcome to the Dark Side). Now this is no normal OST. Instead the composer, Pearl Kyoudai expands many of the background tracks and adds lyrics to them, making this more of an actual album I’d buy from a band than a bunch of bgm tracks. The music itself is eclectic, ranging from punk tinged jazz to straight blues and actual punk, upbeat pop singles, to one track that sounds like it came from the japanese Animal House and another with sounds straight from the jungle. The whole album ends up sounding like something that can only be defined as “hip”. Highly recommended to any anime fans or just music fans in general for this excellent album that breaks the mold of other OST’s.

Favorite Tracks:
Kyou wa Yuuhi Yarou - Harmonica focused blues track that hits ya right in the heart.
Ashita wa Tabun Daijabou - straightforward rockin jazz/pop track.
Shurabi no Youkoso (Welcome to Hell) - Hardcore piano blues track where the english title is repeated to really give a forboding feel.
Youkoso! Hitori Bocchi - melancholic acoustic guitar track, like something from Spitz.

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Another out of the ordinary soundtrack is this second OST for Ouran High School Host Club. The soundtrack for Ouran is completely made up of classical music tracks created by Hirano Yoshihisa. A mixture of violins, piano’s, cello’s, clarinets and other various wind instruments among others are all included in here. While interesting at first, one can’t help but get the feeling that every song sounds like the last one you heard, with very little variation in between. While fitting for the show, the whole thing can be summed up as ” heh that’s nice but boring and forgettable “. Included are also a couple of Jpop songs by the cast but they are also ultimately forgettable with the rest of the OST.

Favorite Tracks:
Misterio for Harpischord and Chamber Orchestra - an interesting piece that pulls off the creepy feeling perfectly, like a track from Castlevania.
Elegia for Piano - Solemn solo piano piece

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Next up is the “Tsuyokiss~Cool x Sweet~Complete Selection”. When I first got this I thought it was going to be the background music OST. Instead it’s a compilation of individual Jpop songs done by the VA’s and Little Non. If you want this show’s OP and ED you can get it here. Included with the Jpop are indivual character themes for the main heroines. Like most Jpop I find a lot of the selection boring and similiar to eachother, only a couple of songs and the OP standing out to me. The character themes are a lot better, each one having it’s own merit and standing out amongst the otherwise dull jpop. Probably enjoyed most by those who like and are already familiar to Tsuyokiss. Also LOVE the cover image.

Favorite Tracks:
GAME OVER by Inou Nana(Otome) - Throwing some infectious techno rock into your Jpop. Nana sings very nicely also as far as I can tell.
Season of Love by Nakahara Mai(Erika) - Pretty generic really, but the fast beat keeps me interested.
Kiriya Erika no Theme - very haunting and vaguely aristocratic theme with bells thrown in.
Yashi Nagomi no Theme - beautifully melancholic piano theme

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Suneohair has releases their ending single for Honey and Clover II “Split”. Included are the single Split, it’s instrumental track, and an originial song called Terminal. As usual the whole thing has a kind of alternative rock feel I alway’s associate with Suneohair. If you already are familiar and like the group you’ll like this stuff also. However while nice their not exactly the most grabbing of pieces, especially when you can’t understand the lyrics. Overall I liked Terminal better than Split, even if it was a little long, as it felt more like a song than a repetitive ending theme. Still definately a listen to if you like Honey and Clover and it’s music.

I had also plan on reviewing on the One Piece BGM Best Collection but that’s not online yet so I’ll just wait till next week. All music was gotten from Nipponsei, best place for anime music on the web.

Bandai State Society

Posted by Demian @ 5:44 pm, August 22nd, 2006

So apparently Bandai has sent out a press release (courtesy of ANN) forbidding the subbing and Distribution of the upcoming Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society. The important part is here:

“Fansubs, even those not sold for profit, are harmful to our properties and industry overall and we will be watching closely to make sure our rights regarding SSS are not infringed,” said Ken Iyadomi, President of Bandai Entertainment Inc. “We are prepared to take legal action against fansubbers and illegal download and other distribution sites if this notice is ignored,” he added.”

The only question I have is why now? What makes SSS so important that they single it out out of ton of other fansubbed properties to make it forbidden. Even though they talk of other series they really mean SSS. Is ghost in the shell some super hot property in America that they fear even one fansub will hurt their earnings? Or is Bandai falling on hard times and pulling out the ‘our only financial problem is piracy’ card to cover their ass’s? Though it is most certainly known that most fansubber’s won’t comply to this. Fansubbing is too ingrained in the culture to try to get rid of it with one press release, especially if your only doing it for one show. Only thing to do now is to wait and see what happens once SSS does come out and if Bandai is willing to do the unprecedented action (as far as I can remember) and go after fans.

Star Trek? In My Black Lagoon?

Posted by Demian @ 5:24 pm, August 22nd, 2006

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Someone finally gives next generation the respect it deserves.

Ok so this isn’t a ” Star Trek References in Anime ” but instead my thoughts on Black Lagoon. Detailing the lives of modern day pirates, Black Lagoon is one of the coolest anime in recent memory. What else has a girl who goes around shooting guys in short shorts, or your ex-terrorist maid going terminator on people’s ass’s, or a CIA chinese assassin who can’t speak Japanese worth a damn. Truly it was all the scary women who knew how to kill you a hundred different way’s and enjoyed it that made this show great. Nice engrish OP too.

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Shouldn’t Nanoha be Revy as they both have Godmode shooting skills?

I liked how the show managed to blend the real world with your “No way can that happen in real life” anime world. This was mostly through the villians. So, ok maybe the neo-nazi’s weren’t that realistic, but you can’t say the same about the columbian druglords in the Roberta storyline or the Islamic terrorists in the last two episodes, along with all the references to the crime world. We also had a link to the real world in Rock, our narrator and idealistic foil to Revy’s diehard cynicism. He start’s the show with his kidnapping and end’s it with, ironically, his kidnapping. But that doesn’t mean we don’t see him grow up along the way. He’s kind of like Takemoto from Honey & Clover, except he get’s shot at a lot.

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I’m gar for Rock.

Of course this is hardly the end for Black Lagoon, with a 24 ep second season coming at some point in the future. Hopefully the second season will fix my only complaint of Black Lagoon, that it drags on too much. We did not need three episodes for Roberta or the one ep detailing the Nazi’s entire background (I was seriously falling asleep during that episode). Still Black Lagoon was a ton of fun and I’m greatly looking forward to the next season. Hopefully we’ll see more Roberta and the chinese assassin whose name I never got. So if you like girl’s with guns, maids with guns, crazy real world action sequences or manly male character’s definately check this out. It’s currently liscenced but I know that doesn’t stop a lot of people. Uh I think I rambled through this entire review…

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Hawt

Acceleration of Suguri

Posted by Demian @ 4:58 pm, August 20th, 2006

Comiket 70 has released a wealth of interesting doujin games onto the market, as Tsubaki has showed in his reviews. Here’s my two cents on one of those games that came out.

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Acceleration of Suguri is a “shooter/fighter” based on the sidescrolling shooter Suguri by Orange_Juice, whose demo I played awhile ago (very hard game). AoS is a fighter/shooter because you fly around a screen shooting at your opponent with lasers and missiles, with some close action melee attacks for good fun. The characters are basically 2-D sprites floating around in Midair with an artificial ring so you don’t fly out. There are seven characters total, six from the beginning and a hidden seventh one. I’ll go over them all in detail below.

First I have to describe the setup and what weapons you have. You have your basic attack, usually a laser of some kind, and a secondary heavier attack, usually a barrage of missiles. You also have power meter, that when charged up allows you fire a super attack. Also holding down other buttons along with the super attack button allows for stronger attacks that take more energy to use. To get around you have a dash button, which is extremely useful as when you dash through energy attacks they don’t hurt and add to your power meter. Finally there’s a kind of “switch” button that when you hold down makes all your attacks different. No more powerful, but just different (usually different kinds of melee attacks).

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We begin with are title character, Suguri, who I actually think is one of the weaker characters. She has basic attacks of shooting a rather slow laser that she can charge up and homing missiles. By switching out she can also attack with sword slashes and a nice dash attack, doing a ton of damage if she get’s in close. Her power attack is either a giant laser or a powerful dash attack. I have yet to complete arcade with her as she just not that fun to play with only sword attacks being useful.

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Saki is a young girl who alway’s where’s a raincoat for some reason and attacks with missiles shaped like juggling pins. I’m not kidding. She can send out energy bullets in a circle around her or throw a boomerang like circle that comes back. She also has the aformentioned juggling missile attack. Her power up sends a bunch of bullets flying or created one giant homing energy ball to follow you, that you can pretty much just dash through to not get hurt. The most useless charcter in the game with a weird mishmash of attacks that don’t hit often. First fight in arcade mode.

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Green haired Iru is your projectile fighter, her attacks consisting of firing a bunch of lasers or differently shaped missiles. She can also form mines whenever she wants. Her power attacks are very useful, as she can summon a bunch of mines or missiles to hit the enemy, or fire one big missile that does a ton of damage (beware it will hurt you if the explosion hits you). Iru a very straighforward character with all her attacks just focused on hitting the enemy.

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Smarmy pink haired Nanako leaves all the fighting to the small robotic drones she has flying all around. They do everything from firing barrages of energy bullets and lasers to firing swarms of mines that hover around. You can also have them physically ram the opponent. the switch button tells whether the drones stay close to you or hover around elsewhere. The power attacks are nice, mostly consisting firing large lasers in different directions. Nanako a good character but confusing to play as, with a bunch of drones flying all around doing different things.

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Fiery red head Kae is my favorite character for just how versatile she is, you can decide how close or far away to play easily with her. Her ranged attacks are firing a bunch of scythe lasers in a row or a bunch of missiles that bounce around the ring after hitting the edge. She’s a strong melee fighter, getting in close and attacking with a flurry of fists and kicks to kill the opponent. She also has the added bonus of summoning clones of herself that attack at will. Her power attacks are a strong dash move and the ability to boost all her attacks with fire to make her stronger. Clearly the best character to play as.

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Kyoko is the ’sensei’ character, complete with mature look and glasses. She’s also the most defensive character, being able to summon a bunch of crystals to block all attacks. Her basic move is to fire a bunch of lasers in a spread pattern. She can summon crystals to either attack or stay put to defend and also has a close range attack of stabbing crystals. Her power attacks consist either of firing a bunch of lasers or summoning a crystal ring to encircle her completely. With Kyoko you just hunker down behind a bunch of crystals and begin firing away with all your lasers.

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Hime is the secret ‘boss’ character, being the person you fight at the end of arcade mode and whom you have to defeat once to play as. Being a boss character has a mishmash of different ranged and melee moves. Her ranged moves consist of firing a bunch of laser arrows a short distance or just one big laser. Her melee moves are way more satisfying, attacking with crystals short range like Kyoko or shooting out a bunch of chains to pull the opponent in for a devestating close range power attack. Her power attacks are either a large laser or sending out an attack array across and area, like above. Her mixture of attacks make her difficult to use but very satisfying to pull people in with chains and then kill them.

The game consists of an arcade mode, VS mode consisting of two player, practice, or online play (which I have yet to get working). Beating a character in arcade unlocks a little story and illustration about them in extras. Of course the story is in japanese so I have no idea what is going on in them, but their nice none the less. Also I love the music in this game, especially the moonlight stage, it all being interesting techno remixes.If your interested you can get the game here, while here is Orange_Juice’s website (all character images taken from here).

Starting Anew

Posted by Demian @ 9:39 am, August 20th, 2006

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This is probably the third introductory post I’ve written. You see I had a blog on wordpress.com, decided I didn’t like the site and moved over to animeblogger. There I encountered numerous site problems and went on a four week hiatus, where I realized I hate writing episode summaries with a passion. So now I’ve gone and deleted the couple of old post I had and am starting again. This time to focus on anime game reviews, manga, and random anime stuff that pops into my head. Should be interesting…(Sakura goddess of Otakuism give me strenght!)