This Is Not An Anime Blog!

StepMania Update: Feb. 27, 2012

2012-02-27T17:13:00.001-05:00

I’d say “This is the last one, I swear!”, but I know that’s not true. I think I make this crap for the gimmick of it all at this point. Oh, and before I forget to mention it: this simfile is, like 45MB, because the video is huge. I guess that really doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, but I thought I’d throw that warning out there.

Feb. 21, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-21T17:47:00.001-05:00

DL: Mediafire (new link)

This is easily the worst thing I’ve ever made. That includes “Flan-Chan’s Music Class.” I’m so sorry. Nyanners, this is all your fault. I almost don’t even want to claim this one. Also, my computer really sucks, so this video sucks. Everything sucks.

Feb. 20, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-20T21:15:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

Here’s an incomplete file for “Hellfire Mantle (Hardcore.edt)” by kanpyo. It’s just 4-panel Challenge steps, but it’s something. I’d like to get some feedback on it before I finish the whole thing, just for kicks, I guess, so expect a version 2 in the near future. Also, there may be a short break on simfile releases soon, because I’m hoping to start working on some Doubles charts for the things I’ve released. We’ll see how it goes!

Album cover by everfeather. Art from the 3D Reimu vs. Utsuho video.

Feb. 19, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-19T22:37:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

It’s Marisa Circuit 1, but it’s got a Challenge chart now! Enjoy!

Art by 神谷ともえ.

Feb. 18, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-18T22:19:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites | Mediafire*

Here’s another file I never officially released. It was originally for StepMania: The Manga, but it got put on hiatus before anything was able to happen with it. Funny story about that, actually: I originally sent them Marisa Circuit 1, but because they couldn’t get in touch with DJ Technetium to get the okay for its use in the comic, they called the song “Malin Circuit 1” and credited it to “Letty Whiterock”. I love it. Anyways, enjoy this one!

Art is from a Vocaloid fan book I forget the name of.

*Mediafire link features background videos and ITG-style scripting.

Feb. 17, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-17T17:47:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

Here’s some PC-98 trance! This was another one of those files I was sitting on, waiting to finish a pack before release, but it really is for the best that I get this stuff out there this way. Otherwise, I can’t imagine it would ever see the light of day. The Expert chart is very ITG-inspired, with all sorts of hand-nonsense, so have fun with that.

This appears to be another one of those instances where I’ve lost the source image for the graphics to the ether, so I can’t credit the artist. If you find out who it is, let me know!

Feb. 16, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-16T22:24:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

This was also in Gpop’s Lunatic Dance Floor pack, but hey, official public release too, or whatever.

Art by alphes (Scarlet Weather Rhapsody) and WOMI (Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel).

Feb. 15, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-15T13:51:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites | Mediafire*

Originally exclusive to Gpop’s Lunatic Dance Floor pack, it’s the official public release of “Flan-chan’s Music Class (LV.4 crazy nekomii remix)”! This is a “joke” simfile that features ridiculous BPM changes, obnoxious mine counts, and overall pandemonium that you won’t like on a sight-read. It’s nearly everything you can do wrong with a simfile balled up into one thing, but people seem to like it enough!

Art by 真実.

*Mediafire link features BG videos and ITG-style scripting. Not compatible with SM5.

DL: Mediafire

As an added bonus for today, here’s “Luna (Alex S. Dubstep Remix)” by Eurobeat Brony. This one’s been up on YouTube for a while, but I’ll post about it here anyway, for the sake of archiving or whatever. This file features the full version of the song and only has a Hard/Heavy chart. People seem to enjoy this one, so here you go!

Art by MikeTheUser and some other people. (I got this stuff from GIS and Bronibooru, so whatever~)

Feb. 14, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-14T19:55:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Art by 邪馬路. CD Title graphic by ＵＮＫ教祖.

Feb. 13, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-13T19:02:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

Heavily inspired by Hiryuu's file, it’s Flandre speedcore! I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, but I figure it’ll be better if I just go ahead and release it, instead of waiting to release it as part of a pack I’ll never finish. So yeah, enjoy your t+paz. What should I release for Valentine’s Day…?

I can’t seem to find the source image I used for the graphics, but the artist is great, so… if you find out who it was, leave a comment!

Questionable Tastes: Queen’s Blade OAD 1 Review

2012-02-13T17:34:00.001-05:00

Okay, here we go. Because my self-loathing knows no bounds, I watched the first episode of the Queen’s Blade OAD that came with the Premium Visual Book or whatever. Apparently, there’s a second episode out, but no one’s subbed it, so I’ll get around to that eventually when it gets done, I guess. There’s also a Queen’s Blade OVA series called “Beautiful Fighters” that takes place before these OADs do, but while I have them, I haven’t gotten around to watching them yet. That’ll happen eventually, obviously, and of course, you can expect a bunch of words about them that no one will read here.

Let’s begin by pointing out that either my computer’s rendering capabilities are garbage (which is entirely possible) or the raws for this series were incredibly bad to begin with, because I got both Subtidal’s and Hiryuu’s releases of this, and they both looked like this. As an aside, Hiryuu, you’ll never read this, but holy hell, how about using an actual readable format for your subtitles? Those were just atrocious. Anyway, this is what I had to work with, and to be honest, it didn’t really detract much from the experience. If anything, it made it more exciting, because I got to pretend I was watching some weird version of .hack instead.

We begin the story with Annelotte Kreuz, some former knight from a fallen kingdom we don’t care about. Claudette Vance, eldest sister of Leina from the original series, is the current Queen and, for whatever reason, is the cause of all disaster befalling everything. Claudette’s army essentially goes into the Kreuz castle and wrecks everything, and Annelotte is unable to help. She is saved from imminent death and is forced to flee. She eventually finds herself on the run from assassins in a forest that we learn is the home of Alleyne, a warrior elf and one of the only characters of the entire Queen’s Blade series that doesn’t offend me in some way. The assassins threaten to burn the place to the ground, and Alleyne will have none of that! Annelotte is saved and is taken in for wound healing. Blah blah blah, Annelotte can’t stay, tries to leave, nearly dies again, and is finally convinced not to be an idiot and rest up.

One thing leads to another, and Alleyne takes Annelotte under her wing for training. Of course, the first thing she does is drop kick Annelotte’s shirt off. Let me rewind a bit by explaining that Annelotte has been raised as a boy named Alphonse in order to be a suitable knight and heir to the Kreuz kingdom. I’m not entirely sure why this was a plot point at all, because she is not fooling anyone. Alleyne isn’t stupid and exposes her breasts so that she can be “true to herself” or some equally ridiculous nonsense. Once she openly admits to being the woman we all knew she was, training officially begins!

This also marks the beginning of my terrible Strike Witches censoring. Those are supposed to be sentient forest vines or something that can grip things and shoot out sticky fluids. Really, this was just a terrible excuse to include tentacles, but we all know that. Queen’s Blade, you’re not fooling anyone. Training continues for a while, and eventually she Rockys her way through those vines, on top of giant boars, and into wet T-shirt contests. Well, not really, but they needed to throw this part in for whatever reason. Finally, she’s ready to take on Alleyne to gauge the true merits of her newfound power.

She does this by “remaining true to herself.” Alleyne summons lightning to imbue her spear with elemental “nature” strength and creates a giant tornado to attack Annelotte, who retaliates by getting hit by it, seeing a butterfly, and then flying back to deadlock her sword on Alleyne’s thunder spear. I guess this works out okay, until the thunderstorm rips through the forest and manages to destroy Alleyne’s treehouse. Things aren’t looking good for the duo! Burning trees are falling, and Annolette’s in serious danger! Quick! Think back to your earliest memories about emergency procedures. What’s the only logical thing to do when you’re in a forest fire? What would Smokey the Bear do!? Well, if he’s anything like Annolette, he’ll summon demonic power from his horse amulet (oh right, there was some vague foreshadowing about this thing) to summon a horse made of space and a jousting spear made of lasers and hope! Out of nowhere, she essentially summons deus ex machina and solves the problem. Annolette doesn’t really save the day or anything, though. She just doesn’t die, and neither does Alleyne. The fate of Alleyne’s home isn’t really addressed from here on. All we know is that the fire is out, and she wishes Annolette luck in her future.

This is where the OAD ends and where I should stop reviewing. However, there’s a Special! Oh yes, Queen’s Blade physical media releases are nothing with Special episodes to go with them! Now, if you know much about specials, they generally act as little shorts that have nothing to do with anything and provide fanservice. This, however, was something else. Are you familiar with Training with Hinako? It’s basically a thing where a girl with large breasts and clothes that are about to fall off does exercises that you’re supposed to do with her. Watch that link for about 5 seconds. You’ll get the idea. If you don’t feel like watching that, then here’s Training with Holo, which is cuter and better for a number of reasons. It’s 4 minutes long.

Okay, yeah, you get the idea. Now, what this needs is the Queen’s Blade touch.

First off, this special is as long as the OAD episode. Let that one sink in. There’s no plot to be found here, obviously. Alleyne just instructs you, the viewer, on how to do various exercises and then berates you for being so bad at them. There are exercises for arching your back, weird kinds of stretching, sit-ups, and even push-ups (this will get its own section), and each exercise is accompanied by close-ups of her most intimate areas. The following picture is literally how I felt watching this video.

This is where it gets bad. Her instructions for push-ups are exactly what you’d expect (you know, doing push-ups), and among them, she says to stop yourself right before your chest hits the ground. Well, apparently, we, the viewers, think she’s cheating and demand better visual confirmation that this is actually occurring. This leads her to, obviously, take her top off, so we can make sure she’s not squishing her breasts against the ground. Now, just throwing out there that in no way does she even look like she’s “cheating”, but whatever. Queen’s Blade. She asks us whether these new circumstances are okay, reiterates her instructions, and gets back to it. The difference here is that her nipples are now starting to brush up against the ground, which slowly drives her to ecstasy. This entire thing goes on for minutes, and when all is said and done…

I hate you, Queen’s Blade. Why can’t I quit you?

Feb. 12, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-13T13:40:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

It’s a day late, but not really. I technically uploaded this yesterday, so that means you’ll get another today! Eventually. Hopefully. Anyways, yeah, it’s Byakuren’s theme from “FAR EAST OF EAST II” from TatshMusicCircle. I’m a big fan of this song (and of Byakuren), and hopefully, this file does the song justice! Enjoy!

Graphics by everfeather. Art by 紅衣きつね.

Feb. 11, 2012 Simfile Update: Part 2nd

2012-02-11T23:44:00.001-05:00

DL: Google Sites

Hard-style Shiki! This song is originally from the Touhou Dancing Delusion stepfile pack, but Armatek’s song is so cool that I just had to make it myself. It’s an alternate cut, of course, taken from the full version found on Armatek’s SoundCloud. I think you’ll like it!

Graphics by cpubasic13. Art by Urabe Michiru (卜部ミチル).

Feb. 11, 2012 Simfile Update

2012-02-11T15:33:00.001-05:00

I’ve decided to try and make a simfile a day to keep myself active with these projects and what-not, so I’m going to do just that. If you don’t see a simfile update here every day, berate me on Twitter! Oh, speaking of, I opened up a Google Site for some of my simfiles and edits. I’ll be using it and Mediafire for simfiles, because Google seems to have a pretty strict 100MB limit unless I pay money (which I probably will, eventually), but my ITG2/Pro 2 edits will definitely go there. In the meantime, here’s some related things.

DL: Google Sites

DL: Mediafire

Sadly, I can’t guarantee a video for every release, but I’m definitely going to try! I’ll have another simfile done by the end of the day, since Sakura Sunrise was technically yesterday’s file, so look forward to it!

StepMania Course: Walpurgisnacht

2011-12-28T01:45:00.000-05:00

Mint-tested, WinDEU-approved! It's my first-ever course, "Walpurgisnacht"! Click the picture above to download it! You'll love it! Here's some text from the readme.txt included in the .zip file.

-Songs-
Stage 01 - "Magia (you's Hardbeats mix)" by you
Stage 02 - "Magia -dark trance mix-" by hiyoko
Stage 03 - "Magia (Electro Shishamo Remix)" by double by seps
Stage 04 - "Magia (Freeform mix)" by so*fram-c

-Notes-
- StepMania 3.95 or higher required. ITG2 variant recommended.
- ITG2 Noteskins (Metal, Cel, Robot, Vivid) required.
- Files created in StepMania 5 prev4 RC1; songs may need to be adjusted for global offset.
- Course tested on OpenITG and StepMania 5 prev4 RC1; some parts *DO NOT* work properly in StepMania 5.
- 2x, Metal, Overhead recommended for best effect.

There'll be a video sometime in the future. Maybe. Have fun!

Freudenstachel Futures

2011-11-27T11:16:00.001-05:00

No Touhoumon Emerald updates. I’ll get around to it eventually or something. Episode six is essentially done; it just needs commentary, and I really need to do something about that. Anyways.

I’ve been toying around with ideas on how I want to change up Schwer and Schwer Alike. I’ve thought about upgrading the Blogger software. I’ve considered moving over to WordPress. I’ve even thought about integrating it into this very blog, though I don’t think that would be the best option, to be honest. I’ve also considered making a specific Twitter and Google+ account for SaSA. I mean, it already has its own (unutilized) YouTube account; people can just follow those particular streams if they want their RKS fix and don’t want to deal with hearing me talk about “Dynasty Waifus” or whatever.

All in all, I can’t decide how I want to handle SaSA’s future. I’m sure I have time to think about it, though. Maybe when December rolls around, I’ll switch to a wintery RKSF theme. That should be interesting. Any thoughts? Hit me up below (you won’t), or tweet me!

StepMania Update: Nov. 16, 2011

2011-11-16T16:04:00.001-05:00

Everyday… >_>

It’s been a month since my last StepMania update. Has much happened? Well, sort of. I’ve made some things, I guess, but YouTube started coming down hard on me for Magia copyright, so I won’t be posting much about madokamania for a while, which sucks, but what can you do? Here are some other things I’ve done!

Ante Up Madoka is probably one of the best things to come out of Meduka Meguca.

DL: http://www.mediafire.com/?dbzg1yg89dngday

The actual file should be synced, but global offsets and whatever… Also, Fraps.

DL: http://www.mediafire.com/?knsrwbgq66nx3iu

Paperblossom is mai waifu. Not really, but her voice is AMAZING~

DL: http://www.mediafire.com/?ec5ttpbp8aqufpa

Something I did for Gpop’s Halloween file. Pump charts!

Doubles charts too!

DL: http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewsimfile.php?simfileid=15719

Also, here are two great files from my buddy cpubasic13. Good stuff, overall. You should definitely download and play them.

Bemani/Touhou crossovers own.

DL: http://cpu13.rustedlogic.net/Simfiles/unxenon.zip

Lady Gaga/Touhou crossovers… uhh.

DL: http://cpu13.rustedlogic.net/Simfiles/desire.zip

So yeah, there’s some StepMania things. Who knows what’s in store for the future!

Let’s Play Touhoumon Emerald: Part 05

2011-11-14T11:18:00.001-05:00

Time to do battle with a girl with peaches on her hat. Or something.

The first attempt at recording this was pretty bad and not usable. So here it is!

Fate was fighting me when it came to getting this thing out. First, I had unusable audio, and second, YouTube apparently hates me and won’t allow me to upload videos longer than 15 minutes anymore due to copyright crap that doesn’t make sense, because everyone in the corporate world sucks. That’s okay, though. Here’s something, at least!

In this episode, we battle with Tenshi Hinanawi, the “Momoko Masochist”, so says the sign outside of her gym. This is a terrible battle of awful difficulty balance and renamed, overpowered move sets. I also show the same battle as seen in Touhoumon World Link Version, which is actually somewhat balanced and decent. I might show some parallels between the games throughout the course of the LP, but who knows. I mean, is anyone really watching this anyway?

My guests this time around are Shou/Vic Viper and a returning Zeether. The outtakes/first recording attempt feature Hiryuu and Tyty. Enjoy!

Let’s Play Touhoumon Emerald: Part 04

2011-11-09T22:19:00.001-05:00

Team Kero? More like Team… uhh… unBEROble. Or something.

We’re getting into story elements now! Team Aqua… err, I mean Kero… makes its presence known through nudity and poorly training Suwakos in an attempt to flood the world with flooding and frogs or something. It’s truly the beginning of an exciting journey that we’ll certainly never forget! Also, I might start making these videos a little longer eventually, so the commentary will have a little more substance. Consider this… a trial for everyone. I want to see what works and what doesn’t!

This episode features Choja Hiragawa as a guest commentator.

Let’s Play Touhoumon Emerald: Part 03

2011-11-07T22:49:00.001-05:00

I just don’t understand why I do things anymore.

Bad Apple!!? More like Bad EGG!!!! It’s the third part with more guests, more commercials, and more Puppets! Are you excited? No? Why not? Welp. I promise this is going to get better. You’ll see! YOU’LL ALL SEE!

Let’s Play Touhoumon Emerald: Part 02

2011-11-07T00:05:00.001-05:00

The journey continues… but why?

This commentary is pretty terrible, but it’s kinda going to be for a while until we get into the nitty-gritty of where this ROM hack starts to go wrong. Once I get things in full swing, everything will go faster. Do you think I should make future episodes a bit longer? Tell me in the comments below!

Let’s Play Touhoumon Emerald: Part 01

2011-11-03T13:19:00.001-04:00

I’m really doing this.

I don’t know why I’m subjecting myself to this. It’s so very Queen’s Blade of me… Anyway, welcome to Kaizo Pokémon World. I’m going to break this thing down to its core and tell you why this game is so terrible. Poor design choices, incomplete “hacking”, and all sorts of other nonsense makes Touhoumon Emerald a prime choice for a Let’s Play. I guess. I’m going to do my best to make this playthrough interesting, but if that doesn’t work, I’m going to start cheating really badly and tearing the game apart.

Well, enjoy the first episode. Also, I would like some guest commentary for later episodes, so if you’re up for that, inquire below or contact me on Twitter or something. Thanks a bunch!

Let’s (Not) Play Touhoumon Emerald

2011-10-30T16:35:00.001-04:00

How dare you, Touhoumon Emerald.

I’ll be frank here. Ruby/Sapphire were not very fun in terms of Pokémon games to me, which is probably why I stopped there, aside from not owning a DS. HeartGold was pretty sweet, though, so clearly, the fault lies with you, Generation III. In order to make this game in any way enjoyable, I had to use GameShark codes. I took the grinding out with experience boosts to see where that would take me, but like the cartridge RAM, I became corrupted. Eventually, I was catching all sorts of things I wasn’t supposed to, walking through walls, and getting badges with button combinations when I’d accidentally make a scenario last forever. This is the most fun I’ve had in ages with a ROM hack, to be honest.

I made it to the Hoenn Elite Four by surfing across mountains, and what do I find there? This game is utterly relentless when it comes to the grinding it requires of you. I don’t mind training in Pokémon games; it’s part of the Pokémystique. You spend some time leveling up to move forward. That’s how it’s always been. However, that whole Lv. 21 Tenshi thing was the start of something I absolutely could not foresee, and it’s just downright unacceptable in terms of what should be allowed. Whoever worked on this decided that changing sprites and names wasn’t enough. No, he had to make Kaizo Pokémon Emerald.

You’ve lost your mind, Touhoumon Emerald.

The final fight of Pokémon Emerald is with the character of Wallace, whose final (and strongest) Pokémon is a Lv. 58 Milotic. As you can see from the video above, Grand Master Nitori, this game’s equivalent, starts the fight with a Lv. 90 LNitori. Aside from the fact that I still don’t know what most of the prefixes mean, read that again. Wallace’s Lv. 57 Wailord has been replaced with a Lv. 90 kappa. How is that even remotely reasonable? The Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza trio (who I use in the video) are supposed to be endgame extras that surpass the difficulty of the rest of the game, and they are lower levels (at Lv. 90) than Nitori’s final Puppet, a Lv. 94 AVIVIT, the game’s equivalent of Mew, which you’re not supposed to get, if the HinaDex entry reads right. Way to be, Touhoumon Emerald.

This is a bad ROM hack. It’s not only unfinished but also quite premature. Some of the text isn’t converted, there are grammatical errors, the game features Hatsune Miku, and the difficulty is incredibly unbalanced. At some point, I will sit down (with specific cheat codes to prevent grinding) and complete you legitimately, with video commentary, and I will break you down to find everything that is wrong with you. You will be my new little project.

I hate you, Touhoumon Emerald.

Mad At Video Games: Touhoumon Emerald

2011-10-28T19:48:00.001-04:00

I have a bone to pick with you, Touhoumon Emerald.

No, it’s not about the fact that you’re very unfriendly for a Pokémon game. I mean, sure, you can generally tell what type a Pokémon is by how it looks or what it does, which makes your decision to give Chen the elemental type of Ground almost nonsensical. Yeah, I have no idea why this attack against Luna Child isn’t very effective. And how am I supposed to figure out that I can’t just normally fight the first thing I see, quite blindly, I might add? The very first encounter requires you to pick from a starter you know nothing about and use Take It Easy, the equivalent of Struggle, because your very first opponent is Kogasa, which is a Ghost-type, who cannot be hurt by Normal-type moves, which are generally the only thing you have. Let’s not forget that the sprite outside the Kogasa encounter was a Momiji.

No, it’s not about the fact that you didn’t really change anything at all from Pokémon Emerald except for the names of things, at least as far I can tell. It’s been a while since I’ve played Ruby/Sapphire, but if this is what the environment was like, then you really could’ve afforded to change something, because the maps really suck. It’s unfortunate, because your predecessors, with their worlds of Kanto and Johto, were actually pretty fun to navigate.

No, it’s the fact that I was defeated by your first Gym Leader. I could excuse it if it was an error in strategy on my part. That would just be pilot error. No, I want to know why the hell Tenshi’s best Puppet is, well, a Lv. 21 Tenshi. She is the first Gym Leader, and the best wild Puppets you have to offer are no greater than Lv. 10, which you have strangely given to me by adding grass inside Rustboro City, er, I mean, Heaven Skies. You expect me to grind (or not grind) for a battle I know nothing about? Sure, that does make things a little more interesting, but usually, the Gym minions prepare you for what’s to come, give you an idea, as it were. However, these guys just sent out random Puppets that were well below Tenshi’s Puppet levels.

You’re supposed to be modeled after Roxanne, right? Well, in Pokémon Emerald, the best Roxanne had to offer was a Lv. 15 Nosepass, and I could, at the very least, prepare with some plant or water Pokémon, because the game was kind enough to let me know that Roxanne is “The Rock-Loving Honor Student.” You, instead, give me Tenshi Hinanawi, wielder of Iku Nagae, who is an Electric-type Puppet that knows a move called Dragon Fever, which is not an original Pokémon move and may or may not even be Dragon-type, as I have no idea what it does other than kill me.

Touhoumon Emerald, when you were being worked on, did your creators really believe this stuff to be from their barrel of good ideas? If so, I do believe they need to check the label, because this is all sorts of stupid. I want to enjoy you, Touhoumon Emerald. I really do. You just make it very difficult. I came from Heart Gold, looking for something new and exciting to try out. Please don’t ruin my experience by being nonsensical and even more grindy than you already are. I’m already playing the game on fast-forward (and accidentally overwrote Gust with Quick Attack in the process), and I’m already feeling the tedium.

Don’t do this to me, Touhoumon Emerald.

GRIEFSYNDROME Playthrough: Part 1

2011-10-22T21:53:00.001-04:00

Three magical girls, one magical controller.

So I’ve been messing around a lot with GRIEFSYNDROME lately, especially since the release of the v1.10 patch, and I noticed that you could set all three players to respond to a single controller’s input. It is my honest opinion that this game is best played with three players, and since I don’t have three people at my disposal, I got for the next best thing. Thus begins the journey of my newest Let’s Play idea: “Let’s Play GRIEFSYNDROME: 3 Girls, 1 Pad Edition.”

This is actually going to take practice, because while the game does become significantly easier with more characters, controlling them all at once is something of a chore. They all play very differently, and as a result, positioning them in certain stages and against certain bosses can become a bit of an undertaking. I did a quick playthrough last night, and I will explain it here with screenshots to help you get an idea of what sort of task this creates. It’s not impossible or anything; it’s just a little bothersome at times. Anyone can really do it. In fact, I encourage you to give it a shot!

Selecting your magical girls really makes all the difference here in how you end up playing the game. Everyone has their ups and downs, but regardless of how you want to roll with this, Kyouko is an absolute must for the game. She provides the best melee range and power, and her special doesn’t take a lot out of her, making her the ideal offensive force for the group. The other two girls you select really depends on your preferences and ability to actually select them, given your limited control setup.

Madoka is a big no-no. You can try her out, but if you do, be aware that her limitations will force you to focus all of your control on her. Otherwise, she’ll be shooting everywhere at nothing. Sayaka is very hit-or-miss here. Her primary attack method requires use of her special, the Dash ability, and unless you can time your button presses to a T, you’ll set off everyone else’s special the moment you try to dash-attack with her. With Homura and Mami, this is a costly maneuver. Speaking of, I personally use them as my other two girls. The biggest advantage they offer is the Time Stop/Tiro Finale combo; Tiro Finale is not bound to the projectile rules of Homura’s Time Stop, so when aimed correctly, it’s a guaranteed hit. The biggest downsides are that Mami plays very specifically in her different ranges, and Homura cannot drop kick (Down+Jump in midair), something that can be very helpful in positioning characters. Anyways, on with the show. For this run, I selected Lap 3.

Stage 1 is pretty straight-forward, as you can see in the video at the top. Gertrud is really easy to defeat with three characters simultaneously blasting away at her, so you shouldn’t have any real problems. Not much more to it than that, to be honest.

Stage 2 isn’t much different. The maze is the only real difficult part, and Charlotte was surprisingly easy, all things considered. Nothing should give you too many problems here, especially if you’re taking advantage of Time/Finale.

Stage 3, however, if going to give you tons of hell, and it’s almost entirely because of this room. Because of the erratic nature of everyone attacking things all at once, positioning your characters can become a problem, and this is vital to survival in this room. It would normally be really simple just to walk to the edge of the screen until everyone is on the same Y-coordinate, but there are instances where the screen scrolls horizontally the other way, making that impossible. If you cannot position everyone just right (or attack in the right direction), you will fall in the holes and lose precious health. This is bound to happen more than once. It sucks, especially since the room that follows is the electricity room with the televisions. While this isn’t too bad by itself, you’ll probably get hurt a few times, which is really bad if this room here has caused you a lot of suffering.

See what I mean? By the time I made it to the boss, Homura had lost a ton of health and was in danger of dying to one false move. Unfortunately for me, such a false move was made, in the end, my highest level fighter fell to a stray lightning bolt. Besides that, this boss fight is really made for everyone who isn’t Sayaka. You can simply stand on the left-most television and pound away with weak attacks. They won’t move you from your position, and even Kyouko’s spear can reach Kirsten when she comes around. You just have to watch out for the few attacks that can reach you from there, like the previously mentioned lightning bolts.

Being meguca truly is suffering.

Without the help of the mighty Homu-Homu, I was forced to pick the next best girl at my disposal, Sayaka, because pffft, screw using Madoka. The stage itself, like the others that aren’t Stage 3, is pretty straight-forward with no real traps or tricks to cause you grief. In fact, Kyouko really shines her with her Up+Strong attack, since it’ll usually take out any cluster of shadow snakes in one or two swings. You should have no problems reaching Elsamaria.

For being at such a low level, Sayaka actually fared rather well. She died quite a bit against the boss, but her specific talent gives her a ton of Soul Limit to use, so she can take a great deal of punishment. I highly expected her to become Octavia by the end of the playthrough. It would have given me a chance to mess around with Kyuubey. Anyway, one really nice thing about having Sayaka is that she can drop kick, making repositioning characters easy and not headache-inducing. It sucks that neither Madoka or Homura can do this, because it would definitely help. For Homura. Not Madoka. She’s terrible.

The boss, despite its few really hard-hitting attacks, isn’t much of a problem. Surprisingly, despite only being at level 5, Sayaka managed to do the best here, even delivering the final killing blow to Elsamaria. Because of the costs of Tiro Finale and Kyouko’s shield thing, I was able to take advantage of Sayaka’s Dash without worrying too much about wasting the health of others. Overall, she proved herself pretty worthy! Go Sayaka!

Reaching the final stage, I was beginning to have much higher hopes for Sayaka. She’d really been turning things around, but given the conditions of Stage 3, I’m glad she wasn’t with us any sooner than that. The final stage is another straight-forward mission with annoying enemies, but it’s nothing that will cause you any real grief. You’ll reach the final boss of Walpurgis Night before you know it.

With three powerful characters (well, two and a blonde girl with guns), you can make short work of the final boss. However, the real problem with this area is the platforming. If you’re not careful, you can separate your characters very easily, which can and most likely will result in either falling off the stage a la Stage 3 or having at least one character get hit with the many high-damage hazards in the battle. What makes matters worse that the screen is so big that positioning your friend’s glowy orb self is nearly impossible without pushing someone else off the side. Here, drop kicks and timed strong attacks are your greatest ally. Or you can just kill everyone off at the same time. Either one works. Stick with what works best for you and pummel away.

Eventually, you’ll manage. Note Sayaka and Mami’s positions. Dealing with your characters is an absolute nightmare in this fight, but if you stay steadfast, miracles and magic do exist.

I got the “Homura Wakes Up” ending image, since she was the only one to die, and of course, I unlocked up to Lap 10. I don’t know what Lap I plan on doing the Let’s Play on, because it almost certainly won’t be that, not with Stage 3 existing, nor with the planned Octavia battle. We’ll see what happens, though. This will be fun to try again, and next time, I’ll try and get the whole thing on video.

GRIEFSYNDROME is a really fun game. Why aren’t you playing it yet?

“madokamania” Preview Pack Release!

2011-10-20T00:55:00.001-04:00

Holy Homura! It’s the madokamania preview video as seen on YouTube dot com!

Download Link: http://bit.ly/mWpJpc

One of the doujin artists involved in this pack asked for a download link to his song, so I figured I’d just take everything I have with graphics and toss it in for a madokamania preview pack! Check out the video, because it has the included songs, and check out the links below for the Twitter profiles of the great artists who helped make this magica happen! Please send them messages telling them how awesome they are!

AMETHYS/TSF Project: http://twitter.com/#!/amethys925
Double by seps: http://twitter.com/#!/Doublebyseps
Paperblossom: http://twitter.com/#!/Paperblossom
you: http://twitter.com/#!/Uhardcore
cobalt_green/hiyoko: http://twitter.com/#!/cobalt_green
Ryuno: http://twitter.com/#!/Ryunocore

And, as always, please support the development of StepMania 5 by downloading their latest release at sm-ssc and by sending them a message on their Twitter, letting them know you appreciate the hard work they do. Happy arrow stomping, everyone!

Edit: It has come to my attention that I misspelled “Hardbeats” in the preview pack. That has already been fixed, so it will be correct in a v2 release.

GRIEFSYNDROME 1.10 Update Review

2011-10-17T17:45:00.001-04:00

Apparently, I don’t keep up with these things like I should, and an update was released for Tasofro’s GRIEFSYNDROME over a month ago. No worries. I’ll talk about it now!

The main thing this update brought us was the addition of two new playable characters, Loop 1/Original Akemi Homura and Kyuubey. This may sound pretty awesome, and it is in its own way, but in the grand scheme of things, I’m very disappointed. It’s not really because I don’t like those characters (because, believe me, I do). The real issue is that these characters… kinda suck!

Loop 1 Homura is just as adorable as you remember, but unfortunately, she’s as useless as you remember too. Her primary weak attack is her trademark golf club. You’ll barely use this for melee, because it deals such little damage. Its real appeal comes in launching pipe bombs (up/down+strong attack). Unlike regular Homura, L1 Homura’s pipe bombs are set on a longer timer and can be launched into enemies with the club. This is really the best way to deal damage with her, but you have to be careful. This is the only attack in the game that has the potential to harm its user. That’s right. L1 Homura’s pipe bombs can hurt her, so steer clear when they’re about to explode.

Her regular strong attacks revolve around two guns, her pistol and shotgun. The pistol fires a generic, straight-shot energy attack and can be charged for greater damage and a better piercing effect. The shotgun fires a weak spread shot that hits a target multiple times at close-range or multiple targets are far range. While shotguns are usually good, range doesn’t seem to affect its power. As a result, it really isn’t very effective. The pistol is okay for what it is, but unlike, say, Madoka’s bow and arrow, you won’t be getting much out of it in terms of power or versatility.

Finally, L1 Homura shares regular Homura’s Time Stop special. Other than the random damage outputs, that’s really the only similarity she shares with regular Homura. All in all, she’s a very weak character that pales in comparison to her own original or any of the other melee characters. She’s a nice little Easter Egg, but in gameplay, she’s low enough tier that I wouldn’t bother using her as anything more than gimmick DPS. God help you if you select her by herself.

Kyuubey, on the other hand, is only selectable when there are more players than there are magical girls to choose. He does essentially nothing but move around and can die to any form of friendly fire (only to be revived shortly afterward). This addresses one of my issues with v1.00, since players can be left out if there aren’t enough characters to choose from, but Kyuubey isn’t much consolation. He gives your fingers something to do while you watch your friends fail miserably!

I’m happy with this patch. It added some neat things! However, it sucks that L1 Homura is terrible and Kyuubey is just cannon fodder. Oh well. I can’t wait to see Tasofro adds in later updates!

StepMania Update: Oct. 15, 2011

2011-10-15T21:47:00.001-04:00

I don’t really have any stepfiles ready for release yet, but I figure I can post some things to let you know that I’ve been hard at work trying to make some magic with StepMania 5! There are also edits for Pump Pro 2. Check them out as well.

New Songs:

Touhou WinterNOVA X - “Stray” by Tatsh

madokamania - “Connect (DJ AMAYA VS. GROOVEBOT CIRCUIT BENT CLUB REMIX)” by ClariS

Revisited Songs:

From mintmania; revised for Touhou WinterNOVA X - “The Grimoire for Alice” by dBu

Miscellaneous One-Shot Songs:

“EX-Termination” by Somnium (will probably be released after a Pump chart is made)

Random Ridiculousness and WIPs:

I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’m in the process of making the chart bounce.

“Bo Peep Bo Peep” by T-Ara (messing around with attack scripts)

Rhythm Game Edits:

For Pump Pro 1&2. Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?642fs65v1lb5y89

For Pump Pro 2. Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?ar34bucu6h5du6s (requires 4 people)

AWA 2011, Two Weeks Later

2011-10-15T11:07:00.001-04:00

It’s been two weeks since the convention. I finally have an internet connection, so I can finally talk about the con like it’s still relevant! A lot happened, a lot didn’t happen, a lot should have happened, and a lot shouldn’t have happen. In the end, this is the best Anime Weekend Atlanta I’ve had since I started going in 2005. I haven’t missed a single one since, and they’ve really just gotten better as the years have gone by. Let’s go over some highlights, shall we?

Day 0:
I arrived on Thursday to the empty halls of the convention center. Few people wandered the halls, and it seemed like everyone was doing their best and were preparing. The Dealers’ Room and Artists’ Alley were relatively quiet and empty. It was almost eerie in a way. Eventually, I found my good friend Boomy the Creeper, and the adventures began. By the end of the day, the place was packed. It almost didn’t even seem like Thursday. As night rolled around and badges were attained, it was off to the Super Happy Fun Sell, the giant garage sale of anime crap and other assorted things. There were events the likes of which I’d never seen, such as the bidding war that resulted in the sale of a Flandre Scarlet bag for 200 bucks. Actually, I wasn’t there to see that. I don’t remember where I was. Oh well. Sad that we didn’t see U.N. Owen after that whole debacle. He seemed like a cool guy. Anyway, we stood in line for forever to get badges, hung out, and generally had some super fun. And the con hadn’t even started yet!

Day 1:
AWA 2011 officially began. The day began with a long wait in line in front of the Dealers’ Room, where we had to endure some of the most irritating nonsense the con had to offer. This woman actually got her own specific red text complaint from an attendee on the Official AWA forums, something that I think was well-deserved. She was kinda ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was that a friend of ours got into the room early by being a Touhou crossplayer. What a jerk! I honestly don’t remember much about Friday, aside from having fun hanging out with people. I wish I’d been able to hang out with more people more often, really, but I’m only one person. I need to fix that someday!

I ended up buying an OreImo artbook/bag package from the great people at ChinAnime, who apparently have a website going up at some point. I’d take a picture of said bag, but my camera is currently MIA. Oh well! They had the best wallscrolls I’d ever seen, and it was there that I got to see the mighty Hameru fangirl over her beloved Meduka, with Kyouko in tow, of course. They were also one of the only booths that offered some really awesome Touhou merchandise that you couldn’t get anywhere else, some of which was given to us for prize handouts at the Touhou panel the following day. The girl there was really nice, and I love her forever for dressing as my waifu~

Somewhere in the midst of the day was the Madoka photoshoot that I had to miss out on due to failure on my part of making arrangements and my inability to be a thousand places at any given time. All I really have to go on as far as that’s concerned are the pictures other people took, which are pretty good overall. Love that business suit Kyuubey. Overall, though, Day 1 was pretty great. I didn’t think Day 2 could get better, but I do believe it was pretty amazing too. Let’s talk about it!

Day 2:
Up bright and early at 7:30 AM, I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything ready for the Touhou panel. We didn’t even get lights turned on until 30 minutes prior to the doors opening. The panel orientation sheet said I should check in with the main office at least 15 minutes prior to my panel. I guess because my panel was at (9) that morning is why the place was closed every time I went by there, which I did three times. Eventually, I had to get hold of the head director of the convention to help me out, which he did because he’s baller like that.

Almost two hours of crazy nonstop Touhou action!

The Touhou panel was a much bigger success than last year’s, mostly due to the fact that we actually had our acts together and didn’t try to settle everything last minute. The presentation was well-received, the prizes were given out without a hitch (sort of), and everything just turned out really well. Given the time of the panel, the turnout was pretty incredible, and I hope to continue catering to the Touhou masses with entertainment and fun!

Following the panel was our annual Touhou photo shoot, which was heavily affected by Mother’s Nature cruel jokes involving wigs and wind. After trying in vain to find suitable locations to take pictures, we settled on an outdoor venue that worked out okay in the end. Afterwards, we made our way to the NicoNico.com booth in the Dealers’ Room, where all hope was lost and the world knew true fear. Easily one of the highlights of the con, right there. Following the madness, the day was pretty normal until the sun went down, and THE SHEET CREEPERS came out to play. This was one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever seen, but it looked like a lot of fun, and it turned a lot of heads. Can’t ask for much more than that at an anime convention.

As midnight approached, the raves began. My buddy DJ Quietly played an alternate rave beside the main one, and let me tell you. Aside from DM Ashura, this guy blew the other AWA DJs out of the water. DJ Quietly knows what we like and how to help us enjoy it. DM Ashura, though, had a ton of special tricks up his sleeve that really catered hardcore to the dance game fan in me, playing things like Gargoyle and Rave Until The Night is Over. I also never thought I’d be raving to a MAX remix, but it happened! I didn’t get to sleep until around 5 in the morning, after some pop’n music, but it was worth it.

Day 3:
As the convention’s last day approached, an unmistakable sense of melancholy came over me like a tidal wave on a capsizing boat. I didn’t get really any pictures or much footage on the final day, other than this adorable thing. In the end, I was really sad that I was going to have to leave behind all my great friends. Good things come to an end all the time, but this AWA was too good for that. I didn’t want to leave. Oh well.

Overall, I had a blast, and I hope that future AWAs are just as awesome. Also, this Mami cosplayer was really REALLY good and very nice, so if you see her around, give her props. Anyways, we have a lot of interesting things happening in the coming months on our end as well, so be on the lookout! The Southeast Touhou community is going to blow your minds. Until then!

Oh yeah. Special thanks to Kohime for letting me use her camera. And photos.

Post-AWA Report: Pre-Post

2011-10-10T13:48:00.001-04:00

It’s taken me a while to get around to this, mostly because my internet connection has been really… well… non-existent. I managed to get hold of an internet card to use, but I ended up using it to upload videos, communicate with the friends that I’m really missing, and get really lazy about posting in my blog about one of the best weekend I’ve had this year. But wait a second, Mint! It says that this is a pre-post! You’re probably thinking that or something. Well, you’re right. I’m not going into detail quite yet, not until I can really sit down and get everything together. There are some pictures I need to upload and some other things I need to handle, but hey, I’ll get around to it eventually. Sometimes, I like to wait for a while before I start posting about these things, because if the memories really are as awesome as I recall, then I’ll post the important parts that matter. Anyways, enough of that.

If you subscribe to my YouTube account (or view it regularly), then you can see some of the AWA videos I took. However, there are far more I need to upload, so I’ll eventually get around to that when I have a more reliable way of doing it. There’s also my Twitter, where I posted a few things. In addition, there’s the Touhou panel, which I didn’t upload but was uploaded by an awesome attendee. I’ll go on about that stuff in a later post. That’s pretty much it. I’m mostly making this post to say that I’m still alive and care about this thing. I’ve got another Questionable Tastes in the works, too, so I hope you’re ready! It’ll be… something you’ve already heard me complain about. A lot. Until then!

StepMania Project: Touhou WinterNOVA X

2011-09-12T04:02:00.001-04:00

Please welcome the newest member of the mintmania family. From the ashes of mintmania WinterNOVA comes Touhou WinterNOVA X (name pending), a dedicated community simfile pack for StepMania featuring some of the best there is to offer to computer-based rhythm gaming. Also, it’s Touhou. So what makes this any different from the other simfile packs out there/that I’ve promised to release and never did? I’m glad you asked.

Touhou WinterNOVA X is a product of ambition. It will feature 40 Touhou songs of varying genres that will be playable in any of the various modes StepMania has to offer. Single charts? We’ve got ‘em. Double charts? We’ve got those, too. Solo 6-panel? Supported. Pump It Up charts? Everything from Easy to Nightmare. Yeah, even Half-Doubles. Sometimes, we’ll even through in a PIU Pro-style Routine chart, and depending on the step author, you might even some extras! It’s got everything!

With the advent of StepMania 5, simfiles have become more versatile than ever, so what better way to celebrate this coming by creating the best thing we can offer? With support for new modes like “3-Panel” and “Keyboard-7,” as well as new timing functions, a lot can happen with these arrows. I encourage many StepMania authors and Touhou fans to come together and help make this the best thing we can.

There’s a download link below. If you want to play the featured stepfile, StepMania 5 is required. As of this writing, Preview 3 is available at the link above, so grab it, install it, and try this out. Let me know what you think in the comments below! Much appreciated!

DL: http://www.mediafire.com/?3k8q3op3iwhaahp

[DDR]	B	L	S	H	C	E
Single	2	4	6	8	9	10
Double	-	4	6	9	-	-
Solo-6	-	4	6	8	-	-
Couple	-	-	8	-	-	-
3-Panel	-	2	-	-	-	-

[PIU]	E	N	HD	CZ	H-D	FS	NM	R
Rating	1	4	8	11	8	5	12	10
Another	-	-	-	10	-	-	-	-

[Kb7]	L7	7k	[a]
	-	10	-

Here’s a video featuring the CZ and CZ Another charts. Sort of.

Game Review: Grief Syndrome

2011-08-26T23:13:00.003-04:00

Hey, I have an internet connection now! I’ve been sitting on this for a little while, so here’s a long overdue update… in review form!

There have been few surprises like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the magical girl anime that took the world by storm with cute girls, cuter villians, and a whole lot of despair. Tasogare Frontier, creators of the Touhou fighting games, among other things, has created a side-scrolling beat-em-up that follows the five magical girls as they hack, slash, and shoot their way through a stream of enemies to get to their terrible witchy bosses. How does it all stack up, though? Is the game as good as the anime it’s based off of? In a word: definitely.

Grief Syndrome is pretty straight-forward. You select a level, pick a magical girl, and blast your way through to the boss. Defeat the boss, and move on to the next level. Repeat for the entire game. This might seem repetitive, but it actually works out pretty well. It should, too, because the game is designed to be played repeatedly. Each character has three different kinds of attacks: weak, strong, and special. Each character plays completely differently, varying from straight offense to total support, and they get stronger over the course of the game through a level-up system. There’s not much more to it than that, and there really doesn’t need to be. Tasofro made that old-school simplicity age quite well.

During each level, characters have to watch three different gauges on their HUD: health, grief, and soul limit. The health bar is pretty self-explanatory; if it runs out, you die. However, damage isn’t the only thing that depletes this bar. Each character’s magic attack also costs health, so these moves can’t be spammed. Some magic attacks cost more than others; for example, Sayaka’s special move, her dash, is far less taxing than Homura’s special move, the infamous “ZA WARUDO” Time Stop. At the same time, these moves, along with all the others, depletes a character’s Soul Limit. In fact, Soul Limit seems to naturally decrease at times (my experiences with the game had Soul Limit drop with each attack but only sometimes naturally). Finally, beside these gauges is a Soul Gem icon that fills up with Grief due to certain actions. If these fills completely, bad things can happen.

One thing to note is that when a character is defeated, they can be revived at the cost of a substantial amount of Soul Limit. If a character does not have enough Soul Limit to perform a successful revival, the character dies and cannot be selected again. This encourages careful stepping in later levels and especially later “laps”, which will be explained shortly. However, different ending CG images can be viewed/unlocked depending on who completely dies and who successfully defeats the Walpurgis Night witch, so this adds incentive to explore character deaths (as morbid as that sounds). In fact, one of the stages can only be unlocked through this exploration. It’s actually really interesting and fun, and it really encourages multiple playthroughs, trying out different characters.

When the game is beaten, so ends that particular “lap”, which unlocks later laps. The higher the lap number, the more powerful the enemies are. This adds a nice level of challenge to the game, but in some laps, the game becomes so difficult that it almost seems gimmicky. Luckily, this is an option, so it’s definitely not a point against the game. In fact, it’s fun watching a group spend an hour trying to take down a single tough enemy. At first, anyway. “Lap 10” is a nice upgrade. “Lap 100” is a decent challenge. “Lap 677” is really only worth trying once. (On the plus side, since you usually die in one hit, spamming your magic/special attack doesn’t really matter!)

Grief Syndrome has multiplayer support for up to three fighters. As with most beat-em-ups, one player is fine, but the game really can’t be enjoyed to its fullest without a full team of magical girls. It does make the early laps really easy, but it’s an excellent way to explore the game for the first time and to prepare for the later laps, if you so choose to play them. Unfortunately, if something goes wrong and all three magical girls in control are defeated by, say, Charlotte, the battle must be tried once again with only two players, since there are only two magical girls left. Having only five characters to select from makes things a little problematic under these circumstances, so the only real advice is to either not die or not to lose more than two magical girls.

Overall, Grief Syndrome has a few balance issues and some unavoidable flaws, but the pros far outweigh the cons of the game. Grief Syndrome is a game worth playing. It’s a game worth buying. It’s a game worth everything for fans of Madoka and the beat-em-up genre. You owe it to yourself to give this game a try. Be sure to try it out with friends, too, because magical girl attack squads are all about teamwork. And suffering. Lots of suffering.

AWA 2011 Preparation

2011-08-08T20:23:00.000-04:00

In less than two months time, this year's Anime Weekend Atlanta will be upon us. I'm personally excited about the prospects of this year's gaming area, but that's not why I'm here. As some of you may know, I will be running this year's Touhou panel, as I did last year, and if everything works out, there will be a ton of fun surprises in store. I've also got a Touhou photoshoot currently in the planning stages, so that should be neat. Anyway, if you're interested in attending the panel and/or the photoshoot and have any questions regarding either, please register for the AWA Forums and post in this thread. You can also leave a comment here, but it'd be great if you'd post on the forums, if only because group discussion really is best for this sort of thing.

And of course, I will be keeping everyone up-to-date through my Twitter feed through the hashtag #TouhouAWA2011, so follow me on Twitter (you can use the feed bar on the right) or continually search for that hashtag. I think the former is easier. Preparations for the panel should, hopefully, be done by Sept. 1, 2011, so please watch warmly until it is ready. Things should be great this year, so let's have some fun!

I forgot to give this post a title!

2011-08-07T14:22:00.001-04:00

Two Fridays have passed without YouTube Video Posts, and the only updates that seem to come from me are on my Twitter. Why is this, you ask? No, you probably didn't, but I'll post anyway. Life changed real fast, so now internet is super-limited for me. This might give me a chance to catch up on some personal projects I've been meaning to deal with, though! If that's the case, then when I come back in full force, expect some awesome things from me! Or not. I mean, we all know better than to have expectations.

Anyways, subscribe to me on Twitter, and follow my little tidbits. I'm going to cut down significantly on the "life sucks" posts from here on so I don't annoy anyone who doesn't care about my life. I mean, that's what Google+ is for, right? Exactly! Well, see you soon!

Questionable Tastes: Friendship is Magic

2011-07-27T21:36:00.003-04:00

So I’ve been meaning to type this up for a stupidly long while now, but life sure has a funny way of punching you square in the face. Oh well! Who needs all that happiness anyway when you have MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? SEASON 1 COMING SOON TO DVD AND POSSIBLY BLU-RAY???????? Many people have been asking what the appeal of this show is, and while there are many articles out there that positively review the show (this is just one link, because I am lazy), people still seem to ask the same questions to me. It’s probably because they don’t want to be caught Googling anything pony-related. Can you blame them? The answer is a definite “maybe.”

I’ll start off by saying that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a children’s cartoon. I’m not going to get into target audiences or demographics here; it’s just a straight-up animated television show for children. I’m not going to defend it like some anime fan that tells his parents how deep Clannad is or how to fully appreciate moe into your early 30s. No, MLP:FiM is still My Little Pony, a children’s thing about small horses and horse-like things, and really, I think that’s where the problem begins. The rest of the civilized world sees people like “bronies” and “otaku” and just wonders how in the world so many adult males can be into children’s cartoons, and then on the “brony” front, how in the world can many of these same males be into My Little Pony of all things? There’s nothing wrong with thinking this way. To be honest, I don’t blame them for it. What’s worse is that a common response to these questionable tastes is “You just don’t understand!” Well, anyways, let’s break this down and get to the root of all this, Letty-style.

Everyone who tries to defend Friendship is Magic immediately jumps first-and-foremost to the same name: Lauren Faust. Now, this woman is awesome is so many respects, but explaining her contributions to why FiM is the way it is (which I will be doing later) skips over the most important point that needs to be made. The very first thing that needs to be addressed is that this is My Little Pony. This is a brand that has been targeted at young girls who want to use a hairbrush shaped like a butterfly to style a multicolored wig on the back of a small mare’s head. Walk into any toy store, and you will see these ponies all offering the same thing: hair to style, things to “accessorize” with, and props to pose next to. It doesn’t matter if it’s the older generation ponies or the new FiM line. This is what My Little Pony is known for, and it’s the first obstacle that needs to be overcome if anyone wants to convince anyone not to look at “bronies” in a weird way, especially when they’re using real money to purchase a Pinkie Pie bubble-blower in front of real people. Unfortunately for these people, it’s not something that will ever happen.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a good show. Hasbro and The Hub really struck gold with this, and they’d be stupid to ever stop milking this franchise in its current state. (Luckily for them, they know this and aren’t stopping with the catering anytime soon. More on that later.) However, regardless of how good the show is and how great the characters are, the toy line is the forefront of My Little Pony. It always has been. It’s the first thing people see, and it’s all your average layman knows. You can talk about how hilarious Princess Celestia is with her essential trolling of the world she rules over, but the toys will never accurately reflect that. Aside from her clearly wrong coloring (she’s white, not pink; the picture is next to her aaaagh), the little button you push has Princess Celestia saying all sorts of things about how you’re her best friend and how she loves it when you brush her hair. Hasbro is marketing this brand to little girls who want to play with dolls. They always have. They always will. Now, the “brony” movement is buying them too. I mean, Friendship is Magic represents nearly 90% of all My Little Pony-related business. Pretty it up like Rarity’s hair you want or color it any color on Rainbow Dash’s tail you want, but you can’t escape the fact that you’re buying toys for little girls. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of the show or not and that you’re only buying Applejack and her truck because you love Applejack and have no interest in playing dress-up with it. You’re still going to complain on the internet that your little girl toy doesn’t have a correctly-colored hat. You’re not going to get past this.

I don’t know what the future holds for this, especially with talks of Hasbro trying to better cater to their more mature audience for Friendship is Magic to keep that cash river flowing, but as of right now, the toys and the animated series are really only similar in name only. Neither one accurately reflects the other, and they can’t mesh properly in a way that will make “bronies” look very good. If you buy a toy, it doesn’t matter that you like the show. You bought a toy. If you watch the show, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want the toys. You’re still watching ponies. The My Little Pony brand is the biggest hitch in people not making fun of the Friendship is Magic fandom and (perhaps) maybe taking them a little more seriously. Unless some miracle happens, you’ll always be those weird guys who like that thing for little girls. Your worst enemy here is the name of the thing you love.

Before I move on to the meat of this thing, the actual show in question, I want to bring up some thoughts on “bronies”. I’ll be honest with you. “Brony” is probably one of the most embarrassing and worst titles I can think of outside of “otaku”, yet I really can’t think of a better term to use. I come from an era where “bro” isn’t exactly a title that you want to have, yet so many of the internet age have adopted the name. “Bronies” are also quite the vocal bunch. Really, they’re not that much more vocal than most fandoms, but they have to shout from the rooftops, simply because they stand against the My Little Pony brand within their own fandom. In addition, it’s not like they have the best track record as far as positive publicity. This Wired article is one of the first go-to editorials concerning this new fandom, and the first thing you see is the gooniest of goons. I won’t even bring up a particular “brony meet” photograph. “Bronies” do not have a lot going for them, sadly, so it might be in their best interests to not be so vocal and fanboyish about everything. It’s like Strike Witches. You don’t go around telling people you like Strike Witches or that you’re into Strike Witches for any reason. You keep it to yourself and snuggle with your Lucchini body pillow. You keep it a guilty pleasure, and you don’t flaunt it.

Anyway, enough about that. Let’s go into why we even have a big, new fandom in the first place. We’re here to talk about The Hub’s biggest show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. With a title like that, you know it has to bring in numerous 20-somethings from around the globe, right? Certainly, there has to be some justification for why so many people are into this cartoon, right? Well, let’s go back to that name I brought up at the very beginning: Lauren Faust. However, there’s much more to it than just the name of a talented woman.

Who is Lauren Faust? Well, she’s the wife of Craig McCracken of The Powerpuff Girls fame. She worked on both that show and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. She’s got a long history of working on cartoons, and a handful of interviews with her have explained why My Little Pony evolved into the piece of work that it did while in her capable hands. To summarize it, as a young girl, she had this thing called imagination that she used when playing with her toys, and often, when those same girly toys appeared in a girly animated series, she felt that the people who created it must not have been very imaginative. No one went on epic adventures. No one had any defining qualities. It was just cookie-cutter characters in cookie-cutter stories, nothing more than a big commercial in a 30-minute time slot. As the head of the project for Friendship is Magic, she wanted to stray away from that and create something worth watching.

With a talented group of people alongside her, she helped turn the My Little Pony series from a girly show about girly ponies doing girly things into a much more neutralized series about characters with depth dealing with actual conflicts. Sure, there is a childish, cheesy moral to be learned, more often than not, and in the end, it’s still written with a target demographic of kids in mind. Let’s face it: this isn’t just My Little Pony we’re dealing with. This is Hasbro, the children’s toy maker. This is The Hub, a network for kids. At the same time, though, this is a well-created artistic endeavor that, clearly, goes beyond just being a run-of-the-mill children’s cartoon. Besides that, it’s definitely one of those shows that caters to an older crowd too. When “Yakkety Sax” and “The A-Team” get referenced and words like “precipice” and “imposition” are being thrown around, you know the creators are sending winks in the directions of much older viewers.

Really, this isn’t just about Lady Faust and her talents. Friendship is Magic is the result of a culmination of very talented people doing very good things. The writers are smart and witty, and a lot of them comes through in each episode. The animators are hard-working and very thorough, and it shows. We’ve even been offered things like a look into how scenes are made and tweaked by the creative team members. The music is superbly composed and top-notch, from simple BGM themes to full songs like “Winter Wrap-Up” and even Pinkie Pie’s Singing Telegram. This is an amazing crew on a ship full of surprises, and the way they bring it all together is what makes My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic really shine above so many other pieces of animated entertainment. It’s a great cartoon, because it has great people behind it.

To even further that, The Hub and the show’s creators know that they have something special, something that somehow grabbed the attention of those 20-something adult males that have embarrassingly dubbed themselves “bronies,” and they know that they need to take advantage of that. This is where they really shine, unlike so many companies before and around it. They cater to the fandom. Directly. As a result, we get "Equestria Girls", a parody of the popular Katy Perry song “California Girls,” "There's a Pony For That", a parody of the ever-popular “There’s an app for that” set of Apple commercials, and even a billboard parody of the R-rated film "Bridesmaids". There’s even talk that Hasbro will be pushing toys for an older crowd. They’re doing what Nintendon't. They’re giving these new and very vocal fans what they want. This will only further their success in a world of viral marketing.

I think I have more to say about this subject, but really, I can’t think of anything else. I could go into the specifics of characters and episodes, but what’s the point in that? There’s a Friendship is Magic wiki if you really need a fix on further information, and if you want to jump in and try the show out for yourselves, hop on YouTube and give it the ol’ three-episode test. Any questions? Post in the comments below. It’s how we do in Ponyville. If you like good cartoons for younger crowds, you’ll like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. If you don’t, please, get in touch with your inner child and leave it a message to come back, because being an adult sucks. Self-medicate on ponies, just like our “brony” buddy Luke Allen. (This is not serious.) But seriously, just give it a shot. Approach it with an open mind, and you probably won’t be disappointed.

YouTube Video Post: 7/22/2011

2011-07-22T09:03:00.000-04:00

Just pretend I posted this yesterday. In fact, I’ll set the timestamp to say I did. Yeah, that makes sense, right? This was totally posted on the 22nd and not the 23rd. YouTube videos are go!

Our good buddy KirbyM makes a thing move when something dies in TF2.

Retsupurae is back with a Mario ROM hack that… someone gets paid to suck at?

Mega64 DOES IT AGAIN with a video straight from Comic-Con, I think?

Cutie Mark Crusaders theme done in the style of old-school Castlevania tracks from the Game Boy, I think. Great job, Kil! I’m watching you post on the Pony board!

This is a blast from the past. It’s also terrible in every way.

I think I’ll post a really bad Touhou video every week as my last one. That sounds reasonable, right? I think so! Stay tuned, because later today, I’ll be making a big post about some things!

Podcast Plug: The Japan Show

2011-07-15T17:29:00.001-04:00

Interested in the opinions of current Japanese issues and cultural phenomena from two cool guys living in Japan? Do you like podcasts? Well, if you answered “yes” to both of those questions, I might have just the product for you! Introducing The Japan Show, a podcast about Japan and Japanese stuff from two people who have a lot to say and can say it well.

The show is hosted by journalists John Matthews and Gavin Dixon, two guys stuck in the land of the rising sun, willfully, of course. What so special about these guys anyway? Aside from living in Japan for quite some time, absorbing the culture and being generally awesome, John is a freelance journalist and was an active report contributor to NPR: National Public Radio during the nuclear crisis caused by Japan’s massive earthquake earlier this year. Gavin is, according to his Twitter bio, a “budding radio documentary maker” and contributed a handful of web clips during the earthquakes as well. The two of them have seen some of the best and worst that Japan as to offer, voluntarily or not. Also, they both have really cool voices, so there’s that. I’m probably not doing these two justice, so please judge for yourselves.

Please check them out. This is quality stuff, and right now, they’re still pretty unknown. Give it a try. You’ll probably like it. Also, I made their logo. That’s something, right!?

Website: http://japanshowpodcast.co.cc/
Listen on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-japan-show/id449814268
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/japanshowpodcast
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheJapanShow
John Matthew’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jmfoots
Gavin Dixon’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/gavsaway1

YouTube Video Post: 7/15/2011

2011-07-15T15:24:00.002-04:00

This week in YouTube, Jeff interrupts Dragon Ball Z, Miku visits Valve Software, and My Little Pony gets glitched up. Hope you like these as much as I do!

This guy thought uploading these videos was a good idea. It was.

This is the best thing to come out of this campaign.

Everyone does their best impressions of Norio Wakamoto. Hilarity ensues.

Alex S. makes an awesome glitch remix of the intro to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

This video represents everything that is wrong with Touhou fandom. Technically NWS, I guess.

And that’s it for this week’s installment! Next time, we eat Gensokyo.

YouTube Video Post: 7/8/2011

2011-07-08T15:58:00.001-04:00

So I’ve decided that in an attempt to get me posting in this things more often and to trick people into following my blog, I’m going to do a weekly feature where I post about great YouTube videos I watched that week. Or something. Why not? It’ll be fun. If you follow my favorites, you probably already know about these, but chances are, you don’t, so I’m doing this anyway.

Mega64 does it again with their latest installment of the hilarious Cosplayerz series.

Swede Mason created this amazing remix of vocal clips of Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson. It was recently favorited by the official Top Gear YouTube channel.

Toyota is really pushing this Miku ad campaign, and I like it.

MLP videos featuring profane rap songs are hilarious. This one is pretty much the pinnacle of editing for MLP parody videos.

You are already employed.

That’s pretty much it. I think I’ll do five videos a week. Maybe that’ll get some interest? Who knows! Post in the comments!

Emergency edit. This is adorable and makes me feel better. Sorry to Alucardalina for not including it at first. >_>

New Game+: Why Google+ Is Worth It

2011-07-05T09:43:00.001-04:00

If you’ve been under a rock for the past few days and aren’t all that familiar with the latest tech news that’s sweeping the internet nation, Google+, currently in closed beta, is Google’s newest attempt at social networking, directly taking on Facebook, the current king of shared photos, liked links, and status updates about how much life sucks. Taking on Facebook is a big endeavor, and I know that a majority of Facebook users are of the mindset that you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. Facebook works just fine for what it is, so why take the time to switch when everything is already set up fine the way it is? I understand this thought process, but I’ll tell you right now. I check Facebook daily, sometimes hourly. It’s one of the best social tools I’ve ever used, and I’ve been keeping up with a lot of great friends with it. I think we could all benefit from making the change to Google+. Let me use a bunch of words to tell you why.

1) Serious competition improves overall quality for all.

Facebook destroyed MySpace in the social networking wars, and the momentum it carried was powerful. It’s become of the most popular websites ever conceived. You don’t see any movies about reddit, do you? Didn’t think so. Facebook stands tall at the top of its social mountain, surveying the cyber landscape it controls, and laughs at the competing social network sites that have tried to recover or take it on. Google has tried more than once to take on social networking as a whole, and it’s a bit embarrassing as a dedicated Google user to see their glorious track record. Google Buzz didn’t do anything except give me another place to post my Twitter feed. I couldn’t really figure out what to do with Google Wave since no one else used it (or even really cared to by the time I tried it). As for Orkut… do you really know anyone who used Orkut? Such a history of failure doesn’t make us very hopeful, but if the Xbox 360 can have millions of users despite a painfully high fail rate, surely Google can get something, at least in consolation, right?

Google+ will not take the same path that its predecessors did. The moment I logged into Google+ for the first time, I was taken aback at how it looked like a really weird Facebook and not much else, but it’s in Beta, so clearly the design isn’t quite finalized and the full set of advertised features haven’t been implemented yet. However, in trying out what is currently there, I can say I’m rather impressed. For example, the way Google+ handles your “stream,” or news feed and posting, is pretty awesome. Now, what does this have to do with the original point?

Google+ has the potential to be a serious competitor to Facebook for a lot of reasons. Google has the tech knowledge, the features, and the userbase to rise to the occasion and give the king of social network a run for its money. In the end, this can only benefit you, the user. If Google+ really grabs people and causes them to make the switch, Facebook loses potential revenue. No business wants that. In turn, they’ll see what’s making Google+ so neat and will try to directly combat Google and implement features that may bring those customers back. If they succeed, Google will try to respond in kind. No longer does Facebook hold a social monopoly; Google+ is now the Park Place to its Boardwalk. If this means that they’ll constantly try to one-up each other for supremacy, then we’ll be the ones reaping the rewards.

2) Integration with your Google account will make things easy.

You probably have a Gmail. You probably have a YouTube channel. You might have a Blogger thing, like I do. You may very well use Picasa. This means you have a Google account, which means that Google+ is merely a step or two away. There’s no need to go out of your way for extra sign-ups and setting adjustment. You’re probably already using at least one Google product and have your name attached to it, which means that you have a public profile. You’re already one step into Google+. Even if you don’t have a Google+ account yet, you can make adjustments to this profile, and when Google+ comes around, you won’t have to do much else. It’s pretty handy!

In addition, people new to Google products as a whole will more likely try out the various offerings Google has to offer. Picasa, for instance, is absolutely fantastic in the photo sharing department, and the software provides a nice alternative to the Windows photo viewer. It doesn’t show animated .gif files beyond the first frame, but then neither does Windows on its 7 OS (I really don’t understand why). Within the software (and even the photo viewer), you can upload pictures directly to your Picasa account to different albums, and this is actually great now in terms of Google+. I’ll get to that later. Beyond that, it’s an astounding piece of software, and I think more people should use it for photo sorting, uploading, and sharing.

Also, maybe people who don’t have Gmail accounts will finally take the plunge and get one. I cringe when I see people still using Aol accounts. Hotmail isn’t so bad, since it’s essentially Live now and integrates with the Xbox 360, but there’s little excuse for using anything else, unless you have your own dedicated webspace. If this causes a mass movement towards the use of Gmail as a primary e-mail account by the average user, then it may also create a movement that I greatly endorse and encourage.

3) Abandoning AIM and embracing Google Talk can only be a good thing.

Having a Gmail account means you have access to Google Talk, Google’s very own instant messaging service. The stand-alone client (Windows-only) is rather basic, but it provides one of the best IM services out there. In my personal experience (I’ve been using it for years now), chat windows are small and simple, photo sharing is just as easy, and file transferring is a drag-and-drop affair that is actually reliable nearly 100% of the time. I can’t tell you how many times Pidgin or even the original AIM client let me down in this department. It has direct Gmail integration and offers desktop notifications for new e-mails. This is nice for when I don’t want to have Thunderbird open all the time with Nanami yelling at me every time I get a new RSS feed update. Chat logs are also saved to your Gmail, and you can search them, delete them, or do whatever. I’m pretty sure you can turn logging off, but it’s such a useful tool for me that I’ve never bothered to do so. It’s an optimal messaging service.

Unfortunately for GTalk, the client is only so good. Again, it’s Windows-only, so Linux and Mac users are a little out of luck, it’s still “in beta” according to its own logo (and according to Google, it’s out of beta), and it doesn’t have some of the features that other messaging clients offer. In addition to AIM and Pidgin, I use MSN Live Messenger 2011, and I love the thing. It has seamless Facebook Chat integration, neat sharing functions with other MSNLM2k11 users (that is a long acronym), and will actually display your current music playing from any music client of your choosing (mine being foobar2000). It seems that GTalk’s client only really support for Winamp and (I think) Windows Media Player display, neither of which I want to use, and if I want it to display my current track, I have to install plug-in workarounds. This isn’t intuitive; of course, it’s such a small thing that it doesn’t matter in the long run, but I like those details.

You can’t go invisible with GTalk. That feature is actually included in the Google Labs version of GTalk, but you get it in place of File Transfer, which is all sorts of ridiculous and a step backwards for the program. GTalk offers voice calls and even “voicemail,” but the quality is somewhat questionable and doesn’t compare to something like Skype. In addition, you’re confined to one-on-one calling, which means no conferences.

One thing that bugs me about GTalk is that in the end, the client feels all but abandoned. However, the Web version of the client, integrated into Gmail, has made quite a few leaps past it. It offers video chat and AIM integration, in addition to all the other things that the stand-alone client offers. Why hasn’t this client made those advancements as well? Well, to be honest, why should it? I’m not entirely familiar with the numbers, but I can say with confidence that GTalk’s client is staying archaic because so few people use it. I have a number of relatively tech-savvy friends and acquaintances that primarily use AIM and MSN, despite having Gmail accounts. There’s no real reason to make a change, because Google and Gmail accounts aren’t really the primary source of communication for most people. This is where Google+ comes in.

Google has an opportunity to improve the stand-alone Google Talk client to offer full integration with Google+, as well as a few other Google products. In addition, it can feature many of the functions that more popular IM clients have, which will give it a definite leg-up. Again, getting more people into Google+ will most likely get those people interested in Google’s other products, and since Google+ already taps into social networking and Google knows about instant messaging, they should not miss out on the chance to capitalize on the integration of both. As far as I’m aware, Facebook does not have its own non-web client outside of the mobile world. Third-party developments have made things from browser extensions/add-ons to their own clients like Seesmic Desktop. Google should take this chance to improve Google Talk and get people talking.

4) Google+ will probably have a better mobile presence.

I’ve read other reports that have addressed this, so I’ll sum it up as best I can. One of the advantages of the Windows Phone 7 is that it integrates with your Windows Live account without a hitch. You get MSN updates and messages, and you can even see what’s going on with your Xbox Live friends while you’re out at a night club not playing Xbox Live. Android is Google’s very own mobile OS. This will make Android and Google+ a perfect combination. Android already has a formidable market presence. If Google perfects its Plus mobile app and makes it one of the defaults within its Android OS, much like how Live works with WP7, they’ve pretty much got the mobile world sealed. All that integration can make things incredibly user-friendly, and once again, this can only benefit us, the users.

5) Google+ offers better privacy and better posting methods.

Facebook has been the target of a lot of heat for how it deals with privacy. Google has too, actually, with the Buzz fiasco. However, they’ve learned from their mistakes and have put an emphasis on privacy. Aside from the obvious social options that everyone knows about via Facebook and whatever else, the big thing is how you can share information within Google+. This comes in the form of Circles.

Circles are a fantastic way of sharing posts and information. Rather than going through the process of creating limited profiles like Facebook, Google+ offers the ability to put your contacts in different groups, like Friends or Family. Then, when you post via your stream, you personally select if you want to share that with friends, everyone, or just one specific person. The last of the three seems like an alternative for directly posting on someone’s wall without other people going “HEY GUYS WHATCHA TALKING ABOUT!?”. I love this. I love the ability to say what I want to who I want so simply without having to jump through hoops and over hurdles. It’s an exceptional idea, and I think that’s really where Google+ is going to shine. It’s the best of both worlds, to be honest: a new way to post easily that maintains a semblance of privacy and control. You can’t go wrong with this.

To go back to Picasa, one thing that will make this even better is photo sharing. Often, I can’t view an image on Facebook without being specifically friended with a user or, at the very least, logged into my own account. Picasa, on the other hand, stands outside of the boundaries of Google+ will still working with it, so a Picasa gallery can be accessed by anyone, given the proper privacy settings are in play. This means less work and less to deal with when you just want to show someone your family vacation pictures, especially if that person isn’t into social networking at all. It’s all very neat and easy.

Those are five (5) reasons to make the switch to Google+. They’re five very good reasons. Do I expect everyone to abandon Facebook? No, not at all. However, I think giving it a shot can’t hurt, and if you like it and take the time to understand the intricacies of how good it actually is, maybe you can spread the word and the joy. If Google+ makes the splash that I’m hoping it will, we’ll all be better for it, and it’ll help connect us in a brand-new way.

Friendship is Magia

2011-05-16T15:34:00.001-04:00

I really should get to work on that Touhou pack. Pfffffft. Right.

I’m surprised we haven’t seen a Madoka/MLP crossover yet.

So yeah, I’ve been working on a bunch of Magia files for no reason. What I really love is that a lot of these artists have Twitter accounts, so I can contact them specifically and go “Hey, I love this song enough that I spent about an hour listening to it over and over again, putting arrows to it!” It’s really neat what social networking can do these days, connecting us all in ways we never thought possible. What a tangled web we’ve woven!

But yeah, this post is just kind of an excuse for me to post a StepMania video and make a My Little Pony joke. That’s pretty much it. Also, I need to revamp this and the Schwer blog, because I realize that it’s nigh impossible to follow these things via traditional RSS feeds, simply because I don’t provide links to them! I’ll get around to it eventually.

Edit: I added an RSS thing. Subscribe, so I feel like I’m worth something! (Addendum: Also, I don’t think I ever noticed the subscribe thing right below the post. WHATEVER.)

Modern Insecurity

2011-04-27T08:01:00.001-04:00

No doubt everyone is talking about the latest news in the Sony debacle. I’m not going to bother to link to any one article, because Google will provide you with every detail you need to know, but if you, for whatever reason, decide to get your gaming news from here, I’ll break it down simply.

Sony got rid of OtherOS on their PlayStation 3 systems out of fear that it might potentially provide access to the inner workings of the PS3. People on the internet got mad and tried to put it back, and they were successful. In the midst of a lot of this, it was discovered that PS3s could be put into a development mode, which essentially opens the whole thing up, and people were jumping in, editing all sorts of files, and supposedly accessing an alternate PlayStation Network for developers. Further looks into everything revealed some really awful security on the part of Sony, and someone out there decided to exploit these vulnerabilities. As a result, all user information from addresses to passwords to (potentially) credit cards was stolen, leaving a lot of people in a precarious position.

There’s a lot more to it than that, and what I’ve given is oversimplified, but you get the idea. Essentially, some very lax security led to the compromise of millions of users’ personal data. As someone who previously owned a PSP with which I bought a few downloadable games, I too am a victim of this oversight, although the card they have on file has long since expired (thankfully). Unfortunately, others aren’t so lucky.

This really couldn’t have come at a worse time. With the PSP Go declared an all-around failure and the NGP on the horizon, Sony’s really put themselves in a terrible position. With so many users, including those faithful to the Sony brand, now turning their backs on the company, Sony now faces an uphill battle in polishing their now-incredibly-tarnished name. The PlayStation brand has been greatly affected by this travesty of a security breach, and there’s no doubt that while many will still cling to their beloved PS3s and PSPs, many others will never look back. With that, the future of the NGP looks pretty grim.

That’s pretty much where I stand at this point. My PSP got busted, so eventually, I’d like to buy a new one so I can playing Project DIVA games (PD 2.5 is coming out soon!) and the Sting RPGs I haven’t beaten yet, but I’m feeling pretty torn. Sony screwed up pretty badly, and it’s pretty difficult to regain that trust when it could be costing you your identity. I was really looking forward to the NGP, which is primarily why I was concentrating all my PSP purchases to digital downloads, since it would be backwards-compatible with PSP downloads. However, given this current situation, should I even bother? Should I give Sony my money, knowing what I do about this situation? I really don’t know.

Also, we apparently live in an age where some games that you’ve purchased, actual physical copies of games, can’t be played without a working internet connection. I can understand the reasoning behind requiring a connection for Xbox Live Indie Games. even though I really don’t agree with it, but we should not be bound to broadband for something that we can hold in our hands. I’m not alone in this, but there’s nothing I can really do about it.

So yeah, I don’t know if I should get an NGP or not at this point, and I’m kinda glad that the current-gen console I own right now is a 360, since it seems to be working just fine (aside from the fact that my internet connection is garbage, making browsing the Live Marketplace impossible). Back to Samurai Warriors 2, I guess!

Rescue Water

2011-04-08T09:31:00.001-04:00

There is a bottle of Arizona Rescue Water on my desk, so I figured I would put that as a title, since I have no other clever ideas right now. Oh, I forgot to put a picture at the beginning of this post. Hold on a sec…

It’s an old picture of a score I got on Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA on a friend’s PSP-1000. Custom firmware, of course. It’s certainly not a picture of my PSP, which is currently inoperable. Slamming into pavement because you’re incompetent at bike riding while carrying a portable gaming system in your pocket apparently causes it to break. My poor Kuroko (that’s what I named it) is out of commission now, which of course means that RPG month has now turned into Agarest Month. Based on what I hear, it may take me the entire month to get through it, if I can get the motivation to care. I may or may not have Dynasty Warriors 7 soon, depending on a few life decisions, so we’ll see how that goes.

So I was sitting here at my desk, thinking that I should blog about something. I’ve always been interested in the blogosphere (what a stupid word) and the opportunities it brings. Essentially, it allows us to share thoughts and ideas about whatever, things that people may read, which opens up communication. I like to think what I have to say is interesting, or at the very least entertaining in some way, be it because it’s a good read or because it gives insight on my own person. That said, I look at stats for this thing, and I realize that no one is reading it. Am I not advertising it? I mean, it seems a little obnoxious to do so, but it helps get things out there. No, I think there are two big problems with why I’m so terrible at this.

First off, I’m just a terrible blogger. I like to think I’m a decent writer (and I am), but the entire idea behind blogs is that you have something interesting to say that other people will want to read. My problem is that I feel like I never have anything truly interesting to say, and as a result, who would want to read this? I guess my rant about Touhou got some attention, but that was really only because one of my internet friends linked to it from his Japanator blog. See, I’m highly opinionated about a lot of things, but the moment I start typing it up, either my ADD starts acting up, or I just go “What’s the point of this?” Often, when I finish a post, I realize that question still hasn’t gotten answered; I end up hitting the Publish button anyway, hoping, perhaps futilely, that someone will read it and care about what I have to say. Maybe I should start complaining a lot about anime. That seems to get things kicking.

The second problem is that I’m broke. Almost all my income goes to necessities, so I barely ever have anything for myself; this includes new gadgets, video games, and the like. As a result, it’s hard for me to keep up with the times, as far as impressions, reviews, and whatever else. I would love to do a review of the latest PS3 titles, but I am severely lacking in the hardware. I do have this Xbox 360 with a Deathsmiles faceplate staring at me, but I only own two games for it, both of which have been mentioned in this post. My PSP’s dead, but it’s not like I was getting new games for it. The latest title I have for the thing is either Persona 3 Portable or Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd, and I can’t say for sure, because I don’t feel like looking up release dates. That would be ridiculous. I can’t afford to go out and watch new movies; I don’t really rent them either, so movies as a whole may be my own fault. I’m stuck downloading new anime. It’s literally all I really have. Sad, isn’t it?

So I’m at this impasse. I want to write about stuff, but I nearly have to force myself to get to typing in this software (Windows Live Writer 2011, a wonderful tool that keeps me from having to deal with the Blogger website, which won’t keep me signed in and, as such, makes me hate it). Then, when I finally place my hands on the keyboard, I’ve got nothing to say. Well, I’ve got things to say, but I don’t feel like I have much to say. Maybe I should type up whatever comes to mind! Wait, that’s what my Twitter’s for. Micro-blogging may very well have ruined me.

What I really need to do is get into the habit of writing in this thing on a daily basis, even if it’s only a paragraph or two. It’ll be a good outlet for me, both artistically and emotionally, and eventually, if I throw enough darts at the board, I’ll hit a bulls-eye and say something that people will link all over the internet. Then, I’ll get e-famous, and people will talk about me on the streets, like I’m a cat that enjoys conducting business. This can only end well.

Oh hey, that new episode of Kämpfer finished downloading.

Seasonal Allergies

2011-04-04T14:04:00.001-04:00

With spring comes the Spring 2011 Anime Season, and I certainly could not be less excited. My backlog has gotten extremely big, so now I have to actually start pushing myself to dwindling down the list by going through my library of downloads and DVDs, all while watching currently-airing stuff AND trying to beat all those video games I have. It’s enough to drive a person mad, and honestly, I sometimes feel like I need to take a long, hard look at my life and really think about all the Japanese cartoons I expose myself to. This certainly can’t be healthy. Anyway, let’s write this stuff down, because I need some place to put it, and maybe you’ll care too.

April is RPG month, so I’ve got four games that I absolutely must beat before May: Riviera: The Promised Land, Yggdra Union, Knights in the Nightmare, and Record of Agarest War. Sting RPGs are something to behold; I really admire the way they go against the grain of traditional RPGs, in favor of something original. However, sometimes, that makes it a little difficult for me to stick with. I’m only now starting to really pursue Riviera, even though I bought it late last year. I’ve tackled a few missions in Yggdra and some tutorial stuff in Knights, but overall, I haven’t made much progress. Hopefully, that’ll change soon, because they are definitely fun games. The one game I’m *not* looking forward to pursuing is Agarest War. I tried to convince myself that there’s some merit to be found in these things, but Idea Factory/Compile Heart anything is almost guaranteed to be all fanservice/no substance. Cross Edge’s gameplay was painful, and I hear that Hyperdimensional Neptunia isn’t much better. It’s difficult to try and get motivated for this one, so Agarest is probably going to be last on that list.

On the anime front, this month will be all about catching up on Fairy Tail and A Certain Magical Index II. Since I’m still on episode 27 of Fairy Tail and just watched the first episode of Index II today, that means I’ve got a little over 70 episodes of anime to watch, just on those two series. That’s nearly 30 hours for the month, less if I cut out OPs and EDs. As of this writing, it’s only the 4th of April, so a few episodes a day shouldn’t be too difficult to shove into my busy schedules. Am I really making schedules for anime? Ugh, this is what I’ve become.

Now, the new season’s worth of shows looks interesting. Steins;Gate, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Maria+Holic Alive, and Fireball Charming are pretty much guarantees; S;G is a constant recommendation to me, Denpa is the latest SHAFT/Shinbo outing, Maria+Holic is a sequel to something I’ve seen, and Fireball is the best thing Disney’s ever shown on any of their channels. However, there’s so much more! Honestly, there are only a handful of other things that interest me, and most of that is garbage that I know will be garbage but I’ll still watch it anyway because I hate myself. Tiger & Bunny seems pretty neat, and Nichijou could be worthwhile; it’s compared to Lucky Star, and I liked that show. It’s doubtful, though. Then, there’s Qwaser no Stigmata II, the sequel to the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever seen, and Lotte no Omocha!, something that sounds so terrible that I just have to know what in the world they’re on about. Both of these shows are going to be pandering garbage, to be sure, but my curiosity is honestly getting the better of me on them. I’ll watch the first eps of both Lotte and the original Qwaser, and then I can make a proper assessment. Oh, and there’s a Kämpfer OVA coming out too! That show was awful, but it was a fun awful. I think.

Alright, that’s enough of that. If anypony cares, I’ll probably post some impressions about things or something. BYE FOR NOW.

Stop Motion

2011-03-26T17:24:00.001-04:00

I was digging around the SomethingAwful Let's Play archive, and I came across an LP that I actually enjoyed quite a bit back when it was updating: CyRaptor's Doom 64 TC LP. For those unaware, there was a unique and pretty cool version of Doom released for the N64, so it was eventually “ported” as a custom WAD for the PC version. Anyway, I find my way over to CyRaptor’s DailyMotion profile to see if he ever did those non-Doom LPs he’d been planning, and the answer seems to be no. Regardless, I enjoyed his D64TC LP, so I decided to check out his Doom II stuff as well. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until I released that DailyMotion is one of the worst websites in the world. Now, I have a DailyMotion account that used for LPing, and I remember back when it was only slightly terrible (YouTube was pretty much the bane of all existence in the LP world at the time, so we found alternatives). Now, I literally can’t watch a video that is over 10 minutes long without getting hit with TWO advertisements for the Hyundai Elantra, one at each 5-minute mark. They interrupt the video, regardless of what’s going on, and toss in the advert. It’s intrusive as all hell, and I cannot believe that anyone would consider that acceptable. Despite using AdBlock Plus on every browser that I use, I have no real issue with most ads. I don’t even mind IGN interstitials. However, when you’re intruding, straight-up intruding, on my viewing experience, then we have a problem. Considering these videos aren’t mirrored anywhere else, I pretty much have to accept this, but hell if I’m going to continue to use the site for myself. For now, I plan on keeping my account active for archival purposes, until I can get around to LPing RKS again, but beyond that, I hate that place and can’t wait for it to die.

Speaking of browsers, I decided to upgrade to Firefox 4, mostly to complete my triumvirate of internet exploration updating (I’ve got the IE9 beta, and I use Chrome, so it’s up-to-date as well). Really, I just wanted to see what sort of changes they’ve made, since I’ve been hearing a few good things about it from various tech outlets but almost nothing but bad things from people on my social networks. Essentially, Chrome is the new standard in design, so both FF4 and IE9 have taken pages from Google’s book and applied said aesthetics to their browsers; it provides some much-needed minimalism by default, which is never a bad thing. Most everyone I’ve seen in the tech world seems to love this; everyone else seems to hate change and simply can’t accept the new Firefox. This has always been very silly to me; Firefox 4 is better in so many aspects. The only problem I have is that NicoFox doesn’t work anymore, but I’m sure that’ll get fixed in the near future. Everything else, like the high-up tabs, is something I’m used to or can get used to without issue. Actually, I remember when I first started using Chrome; the tabs really threw me for a loop, and I loved them almost immediately. Unfortunately, there were no extension for Chrome, so I ended up installing a full Chrome theme for Firefox, just so I could have all my FF functions in a Chrome package. Now, Chrome has almost everything I need and runs faster, so it’s what I almost exclusively use, with Firefox as my secondary browser. However, if you’re like so many people I know that just use Firefox, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with its 4th edition, and if you can’t get past it and accept change for the better, then the apocalypse could very well be nigh for your kind.

Dynasty Warriors 7 comes out in a few days. Too bad I won’t be able to afford until next pay day! I’ll probably write up a huge post on that when I can get it, but we’ll see. I’m tired, so I’m just going to end it there. Also, that Project DIVA 2 screencap up there just kinda happened out of nowhere. I was watching Haku sing to herself, and then Miku decided it was time to dance. Then, Haku went to bed. Good times.

Strawberry Crisis

2011-03-22T12:52:00.002-04:00

No.

I smell like strawberries. This is because I am covered with strawberry smoothie mix. This is because people are stupid and cannot properly dispose of strawberry smoothie mix. Instead of getting out of my clothes and showering this strawberry smoothie mix off of me, I am typing about it on the internet.

So this is, indeed, not okay.

I’ve been somewhat addicted to PSP Minis as of late. I’ve been enjoying my fair share of Tetris, as should everyone, but I’ve also been in a bit of a shooter mood. Luckily, I found The Flying Hamster and A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks!. The former is a neat little side-scrolling shmup where you play as a hamster with a leaf propeller, shooting seeds, bubbles, and berries at other animals and objects in an attempt to rescue your hamster girlfriend and a golden sunflower seed from a bird. It’s incredibly silly, but it’s pretty much exactly what I wanted in a side-scroller. It’s no Deathsmiles, but for $2.99 on the PSN store, you shouldn’t expect it to be. Now, $2 Space Shooter is fantastic for being $1.99, which is a penny less than the “2 Bucks!” in the title. The voice acting is great, the presentation is fantastic, and the gameplay is solid. I’m not a fan of the momentum of the ship, since I’m so used to playing vertical shmups like Espgaluda or anything Touhou-related, but beyond that little gameplay quirk, it’s really a blast. Both games come highly recommended.

So yeah, because of no one in particular, I’ve found myself re-watching random episodes of Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan. This is really not a series you need to watch more than once, but it’s by one of my favorite artists (this really isn’t something I should be admitting; let’s just say I liked Mahoromatic). Everything about this show is ridiculous, and it caters to a certain kind of person, so I’m not really sure if I can recommend this to anyone who isn’t an absolute pervert. There’s not a lot this show leaves to the imagination, and… well, something happens at least once an episode that’ll make you either go “Eww. I’m done.” or “Ha ha, Bow Ditama, you so silly.” That’s all I need to say about that.

I think I’m done for today. Tune in next time for the same exact thing. Maybe. I’m tired.

Unrealistic Endeavors

2011-03-21T04:09:00.005-04:00

At work recently, someone noted my habitual aggression when I grow frustrated at the world around me, usually because I grow annoyed by people or problems that I have no capacity to fix. He said I should take up something artistic to vent my aggressions; I agreed. One of the reasons I even started writing in blogs was to vent, and somehow I keep forgetting that I have this outlet. I swear, it’s like I have to force myself to do any writing these days. It’s really silly, too, because I love writing. Well, maybe, just maybe, this time, I can change all that. It’s time to dust off this thing that I haven’t written in since August of last year and maybe talk about stuff. Maybe something good will come out of it.

I finally got around to playing Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, since it’s currently on sale on PSN for only 10 bucks. I have to say that I was long overdue for playing that, as it was a pleasure (and would have been had I paid full retail). Having played too much of Rosenkreuzstilette and no longer owning Mega Man X8, I was looking to indulge in some old-school X play, and Maverick Hunter X did not disappoint. The first MMX was always a good game, and playing an enhanced version made it even better, which is certainly more than I can say for Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. The inclusion of a playable Vile (and not Zero), as well as revamped story elements provided me with an experience with MMX that I hadn’t previously had with the original SNES title. It was definitely a treat, and if you haven’t played it yet, I would highly recommend it. I mean, at a $9.99 price tag, how can you go wrong?

In my attempt to find links for the previous paragraph, I found myself wiki-hopping, reading about weapons in Symphony of the Night and the Mega Man series. I really need to stop getting so easily distracted. Having ADD really sucks sometimes; it’s pretty much the reason I can’t seem to finish my Touhou simfile pack. My plans to release WinterNOVA before, well, the end of winter pretty much failed like every other simfile pack attempt I’ve made outside the original mintmania, but I digress. It’ll get done eventually.

On the anime front, I’m currently watching the absolute gem that is Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and I watched the (first?) animated version of Cat Shit One, of which the manga has been recommended to me more times than I can count. Both are fantastic pieces of work; in fact, I feel like we’re starting to fall out of the moé boom with some of the things that have been coming out lately. Sure, we still have to deal with the likes of I Don't Like You At All, Big Brother and the fanservice-fests like whatever the hell this monstrocity is, but overall, we’re getting nice deconstructions and superbly-animated bunnies stabbing camels in the neck. Can’t complain too much, I guess!

Well, that’s enough of that. Maybe this article will post properly, and then I can move on and maybe post something tomorrow or in a month. At the end of the month, I’m expecting to have Dynasty Warriors 7 in my hands, so I’ll be talking about that a lot. Maybe I’ll toss in whatever happens as I go through Record of Agarest War.

ps – Next time, I’m not using italics.

A Return to Form

2010-08-18T03:33:00.000-04:00

We are starting over! From the ashes of my former podcast comes a blog that isn't about anime... even though it might very well be about anime! Or something. I have some things sitting around that I've been wanting to talk about, so this gives me a chance to do it! That includes responding to the people who commented on that Touhou rant I did a while back. Also, there's a URL change, so if you found this, go you! Spread the word, I guess!

I'll be back at some point with some information about a new project in the works! Look forward to it!

Boxing Gloves

2010-03-18T05:09:00.003-04:00

There are appallingly stupid movies, and then there are films like The Box. There's really nothing I can say here that hasn't already been addressed by the numerous movie reviewers out there in the ether, so I'll keep this brief, for the most part. I often say that I'll keep something short, and then it turns out to be quite long-winded. Anyways, on with the review.

To sum up the story, a couple gets a box with a button on it, and if they push the button, they get one million dollars, and someone they don't know dies. This premise has a nice and presumably deep meaning to it, most notably the moral dilemma that spawns as a result. People die all the time; what's another one? With a million dollars, tax-free, at stake, that seems like a pretty sweet deal, overall. Of course, the other big part to all of this is something that is actually addressed both in the original The Twilight Zone television version and (half-assedly) in this film: what exactly is it to know someone? Do you really know the people you think you do? What's hilarious to me is that the original Twilight Zone ending in which the husband dies because "did she really know him?" is a pretty sweet twist and cool ending, but the director of this film apparently thought it wasn't, so he decided to make the entire film completely nonsensical and stupid.

I don't want to go into details, but when a movie about a moral dilemma suddenly turns into something about mysterious conspiracies, magical water portals, disconnected story points, and enough nosebleeds that some of the supporting extras might as well have been in an episode of Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan, you really start to wonder if the people behind it had any clue what they were doing. Really, for me, this movie was reminiscent of Untraceable, a movie that presented a similar moral question about the selfishness of humanity and, similarly, failed to actually succeed in touching the audience thanks to its shoddy presentation, lackluster acting, and nonsensical plot. Unintentional hilarity turns a movie of this nature into something worthy of RiffTrax, not The Academy Awards. It's unfortunate, too, because something like The Box could have been pretty good if the director hadn't gotten full of himself and his Donnie Darko fame. Richard Kelly tries to fill the movie with loose ends to further the mystery; instead, he just makes the damn thing frustrating to watch. There are so many loose ends by the end, you really wonder if some of the supposedly major points to the story could have been cut out altogether.

This movie was hilariously awful. Maybe there was something I didn't see in it (at least one reviewer thought it was a glorious return-to-form for the sci-fi thriller genre; I think he's an idiot), but as far as I could tell, there was little to redeem this film. If you have time to kill and friends to watch it with, grab a copy (download it, or rent it from one of those $1 rental machine things), sit back, watch this film, and then get angry that you could have better spent your time learning to type with boxing gloves on.

Double Disappointment

2010-03-14T04:00:00.000-04:00

This was originally meant for my Letty rant, but it will suffice here.

The latest Touhou game is upon us, and it's causing quite a stir amongst internet communities. No, it's not because of a new game mechanic or the introduction of a controversial character. It's actually because the latest installment of the Touhou franchise is, surprisingly, not a new traditional Touhou shooter, nor is it a continuation of the Tasofro's popular fighting games. As it turns out, the latest game is a sequel to the ninth-and-a-half Touhou game, most commonly referred to as "Shoot the Bullet." That's right. Aya Shameimaru, Gensokyo's resident reporter, is back on the case, and the news resulted in the expected responses. Some cheered and welcomed the return of StB's unique gameplay, others groaned at the absence of a brand-new storyline and the characters and themes that come with new Touhou games. Really, the split lies between people who loved StB and the people who hated it. To tell you the truth, I'm in the latter of the two; I'm more of a fan of traditional shooters, and to be honest, I never got used to the controls. The game was just too hard for me. I loved the idea, and watching replays is usually pretty exciting, but that game simply isn't for me. Of course, I'm not really here to talk about "Shoot the Bullet" or the strangely-named "Double Spoiler." I'm here to talk about some statistics within the Touhou fandom that came up during a discussion about Touhou 12.5's surprising announcement over at Maidens of the Kaleidoscope.

In a recent Japanese popularity poll concerning the Touhou franchise, voters were asked to list three reasons for why they are interested in the Touhou series, and to someone like me, the results were shocking and a little disheartening. As it turns out, only 22.58% of the 22,207 people who voted actually care about Touhou as a shoot-em-up game series. The Top 3 reasons why people like the Touhou series were the music, the characters, and the story/setting of Gensokyo. To me, that's really sad. I was told by a fellow forum user that this may have something to do with the mindset that doujin products (like Touhou) are inferior to commercial ones (like Mushihimesama), and although there's definitely something to take from that, the issue is much deeper. The observation I made based on those statistics (and a general understanding of Touhou fandom in general) is that the people within the Touhou "fandom" care more about the characters and their musical themes than they do about the shooting games they are from. Now, I understand that shmups are not for everyone, and anime appeals to many, but looking at those stats, ZUN could stop making games entirely and simply release vague character bios and portraits, paired with musical tracks, and there's a good chance that a *large* portion of the fandom will not notice or care. What kind of fandom is this?

As terrible as the Final Fantasy community usually is, they need to be given credit where credit is due. The majority of them fell in love with Final Fantasy VII and its characters by *playing the damn game*. In some way or another, they managed to get through the original source material and probably even more, like Advent Children or Dirge of Cerberus, and their fandom is based on their experiences with those official works. Yeah, it generally derails into terrible fanfiction and even worse artwork, but at least it came from somewhere, right? I highly doubt that most people came into the Final Fantasy fandom by stumbling on some pictures and fanfiction and going "Well, I love that stuff, so consider me a Final Fantasy fanatic!" So why does this happen with Touhou?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. IOSYS's "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing" flash video was the worst thing that ever happened to Touhou. I do not hail from the school of "It's Popular, Now It Sucks" and never will; I have also never read the TVTropes article on the subject, and I probably never will. However, that flash changed everything; it combined a catchy, singable tune with cute anime characters, and people ate it up. I personally watched the Touhou popularity boom (and even contributed to it in my way) as it went from 4chan's /f/ section to YouTube to where it sits today. Sure, the exposure was nice in its own way. Doujin materials can be pretty cool, and it definitely brought new shmup fans into the franchise. Always a plus. However, the majority of the people brought in were people wondering what anime these characters came from. Now, it's exploded to a point where your average Touhou fan may have downloaded all the games but has maybe played each one twice ever. However, their doujin collections, figures, plushies, and cosplays all exist to somehow justify a fandom to which I question their loyalty. These people don't play Touhou games, and chances are they never will. No, I don't expect every Touhou fan to be the next Lunatic expert, but they can at least show that they give a damn about the series by purchasing and playing the games that allow the doujin materials to exist in the first place. Real fandom comes from supporting the creators and showing your love for the creation. Generally, Touhou followers do neither.

Those statistics prove it. As long as they get their music and characters, they're satisfied. The source material is irrelevant at this point, and that's what disheartens me the most. These people are not fans of the Touhou series. They're fans of cute anime girls and remixes of songs from a soundtrack they downloaded. It's quite sad knowing that when the Touhou series ends, no one will really miss it, because doujin material will be eternal. Long after ZUN stops making his games, doujin comics and remix albums will still be released, and people will forget that there was once some playable thing that went with it all. The true fans will mourn not because there will be no new music or characters or because there will be no new spell cards to dodge. They will mourn because of both, and the legacy will live on in danmakufu. Really, that's what Touhou is about: danmaku. And when only 17.46% of fans like Touhou because of that, I really wonder if they are "fans" at all. Maybe I just don't understand fandom. Then again, maybe they're the ones who don't.

Inferior Superiority

2010-01-22T16:10:00.002-05:00

Digital entertainment of the anime variety has come a long way since the VHS fansub tapes of the olden days, and now, fansub groups, for the most part, are keeping up with the technological trends of the 21st century. The standard for fansubs these days seems to be the ".mkv softsub" file, which, for those not in the know, is a raw video file with a subtitle file that overlays onto the video, all wrapped into a single container file (the .mkv) without the need for encoding the subs directly into the video. This formats offers DVD-style navigation of your video, allowing for multiple subtitle tracks, multiple audio tracks, and, depending on who actually does this, chapter navigation. It's all very interesting and incredibly neat, and it pretty much sets the overall standard for what is expected from digitally-distributed media on the internet. That said, some sub groups instead release .mp4s, release .avi files alongside their .mkv files, or just still .avi files only (see Dattebayo and a.f.k.). In addition, there are even groups out there who only purpose is to convert fansub videos into other formats, such as .avi or .mp4. With this superior technology out there, why revert to inferior encodes? This isn't really news to anyone who follows this stuff normally, but I felt like writing about this, because I know some people wonder why. I think, anyways.

First and foremost, softsubs can be quite resource-intensive, depending on how elaborate they are. A most recent example of this is when fansub group gg released Nyan Koi! and had to release a second version of an episode, because it caused ridiculous lag on some viewers' computers. The big reason for this is because while fansubs are following the technological standards pretty closely, the average anime-watching consumer isn't. For many, my AMD Athlon x64 dual-core with 4 GB of RAM, which I find somewhat mediocre, is an incredible system and a huge jump from what they currently run. A re-encode to hard-coded subs in the form of .avi or .mp4 videos eliminates this problem for them by allowing the same anime to be viewed at lower system costs. This is actually a god-send for some people. I remember when the power supply on my current system exploded, and I had to go back down to my eMachines (yes, I bought one of those, it's a long story) with an Intel Celeron. It had 2 GB of RAM and a decent video card, but I couldn't watch 720p softsubs without something going off-sync, and 1080p rips like AIR or ef - a tale of melodies just weren't going to happen. Because my system standard had to be lowered, if grandma Letty wanted to watch her stories, video standards had to be lowered as well. Sure, it doesn't look as good, but it runs. That's what counts, I think.

Second, portable devices are a big deal now, and a great deal of people have things like iPhones, Zune HDs, and even PSPs that they use to listen to music and watch videos. None of these devices know what to do with an .mkv video. My Zune basically looks at me like I'm an idiot (of course, it does that with most things anyway), so in order for your videos to be viewable on these devices, they have to be re-encoded into readable formats. There are a number of groups out there who actually dedicate themselves to re-converting videos to be viewable on the PSP, which works well for me, as those same videos work quite nicely on my Zune. I currently have Fight Ippatsu Juuden-chan!, Saki, and To Aru Majutsu no Index on there, the last one being a show I haven't actually watched yet, so having that on-the-go, wherever I want, is actually pretty nice.

Third, generally speaking, these re-conversions are smaller, so they take less time to download and less space to store. While this seems like it would fall under the first point, storage space and the availability of bandwidth are sometimes out of one's control (maybe if you're on the road and the wireless connection you have sucks, or if you went back to NetZero because you hate yourself). It doesn't really matter how good your system is; if you have limited space and limited access, you go with the best alternative to suit your needs. For people who fall into this, re-encodes are a wonderful thing.

Finally, re-encodes can be uploaded to YouTube, which makes free anime even more free, giving people even more excuses to not support the industry. Hooray!

In short, for the people who are always on top, there's just no need to revert to an inferior product. However, for many, the inferior product actually works out better for them, making the seemingly paradoxical phrase "inferior superiority" a little more real.

Merit Badge

2010-01-21T23:14:00.002-05:00

I don’t claim to be a professional reviewer, and maybe I don’t know anything about reviewing when it really comes down to it, but given what I read and what I feel, I honestly believe that if you’re putting a score to something that you’re reviewing, your review should reflect the piece as it is, not as you felt it was. To clarify, I feel that when rating a show or a game by giving it a numerical score, you should not give the score based on how the show made you feel or how much you enjoyed but on how good the product actually is from the inside out. It may sound like I’m not making much sense (Letty, why would you give a good score to something you didn’t enjoy?), but hear me out.

One of my favorite game series of all-time is the Warriors/Musou series, which includes games like Dynasty Warriors 5, Samurai Warriors 2, Musou Orochi Z, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, and even Sengoku Basara 2. I can’t express how much time I’ve invested in those hack-and-slash games, and probably some of my greatest gaming experiences have come from them. But let’s be honest. No Warriors game is really all that good. The games have a fair number of problems and negative aspects, including (but not limited to) wonky camera controls, unbalanced difficulty, repetitive gameplay, and, sometimes, incredibly slow and boring missions. They’re not perfect, not by a long shot, but regardless, I love them to death. I see around those imperfections and look past everything that’s wrong with them, and I just truly enjoy them. That said, because of the aforementioned problems, I would never give those games a score that reflect the amount of fun I have with them. If I did, the score would be entirely inaccurate, and the review just wouldn’t be a good one. As such, in my eyes, there’s really no reason to rate a show or game on how much it entertained you.

I’ll give one more example: When I was in southern California at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009, the highlight of my trip was playing Dokapon Kingdom with some friends of mine. We laughed, we cried, we got incredibly angry, and we had a great time. Let’s face it, though; Dokapon Kingdom is not a party game for everybody, and at its core, the game is really not very good at all. It’s frustrating, favor can get ridiculously skewed towards a certain player, and the mechanics are just terrible. It’s hard to even convince people to give the game a chance, because beneath the cutesy and simple exterior is a game that is highly alienating to people who care about graphics (and, in some ways, gameplay) or are looking for another Mario Party. It’s just not going to happen. Regardless, I had a lot of fun with it at the time, and it was an enjoyable experience. However, because the game falls apart in so many ways, an accurate review requires an accurate score with those issues addressed.

Now, that’s not to say that personal feelings don’t play a part, because in some shows and games, specific charms can come into play that can take them into “so bad, it’s good” territory (or something similar), and as a result, your review score will be affected. However, just because something is your favorite or something is exquisite in your own tastes doesn’t mean that it’s really as good as you think it is. If you want to review that way, that’s all well and good. It is a review style, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It works incredibly well for a series like Zero Punctuation, and you can clearly see, Yahtzee expresses his opinion as simply that, never giving anything a score of sorts, because he’s just not that kind of reviewer. That’s perfectly valid for that style. However, if you’re going to toss something a numerical score and put your review up on a place like MyAnimeList or AniDB, then you’d best be thorough about it and review it properly for the sake of professionalism and accuracy. It just makes sense. Do it right, or don’t do it at all, I say.

Then again, that could just be me.

Repeating History

2010-01-20T22:58:00.000-05:00

Nanael and I had an interesting conversation last night about re-watching shows and movies, and I really cannot fathom his stance on the issue. Well, that’s not entirely accurate; I can understand the sentiment and mindset behind the feeling, but it seems… adjective I can’t quite place. Let me break it down.

When Nanael was growing up (and even now), it was nothing for him to watch and enjoy the same movies and shows repeatedly, basically reliving the same experience over and over again because he enjoyed it just that much. That seems so very strange to me, because the way I see it, a story really doesn’t have the same effect the second time through when you already know what’s going to happen and have already passed the point of wondering how everything will progress and how the protagonist will (or will not) reach his goal and win the day. He seems to believe that because I can’t do this, the case must be that I have never truly enjoyed anything because of my lack of desire to experience it a second time. My question, though, is "Why should I rewatch something that I won't really get anything new out of? Why not try something new?"

He started re-watching Outlaw Star, which is a fine piece of animated entertainment to be sure, and it really is nothing for him to re-watch shows that he really liked. However, I personally am not a fan of constantly falling back into a comfort zone of sorts where I play it safe and take in what I know is good, because I feel that time could be better spent trying out unexplored territory in an attempt to discover new experiences and enjoy different (and possibly better) shows. For example, I can say that I really did enjoy Seto no Hanayome quite a lot, as it's one of my favorite comedies ever, animated or not. It was very good, and part of the appeal of it was seeing what crazy thing was going to happen next. I loved that show; however, there's just no way I could watch it again and re-experience the show like I did the first time. Sun's crazy samurai speeches, Nagasumi's reactions to Masa, and Shark's sharkiness are all expected now; it's absolutely nothing new. The only time I could see myself watching it again is if I was watching it with someone else who hasn't seen it before, because there are so many other comedies out there, so why not try to experience them as well? Maybe they do something better. Maybe they don't. It's a gamble, but for the sake of entertainment, I feel it's not a bad thing to do.

Really, time plays a big part of it all. When you have a backlog as big as mine, or when you want to just experience what the entertainment world has to offer, I feel that it's better to try new things rather than stick with what you know. That doesn't mean I didn't initially enjoy them. It means that while they were very enjoyable for me, I got what there is to get out of it. I can relive the story, sure, but why should I fish in the same spot when the lake is so vast? Shows and movies are a time investment, and spending those points by experiencing something you've already experienced before means wasted potential, as those points could have been spent on something else that was new, just as good (if not better), and just as enjoyable. It just makes sense to me.

It's not really that big of a deal if you want to watch Star Wars fifty times over the course of a year, but in my eyes, you could have watched 49 other movies instead. The same holds for anime. Watching your favorite 26-episode anime a second time is all well and good, but you could have just as easily watched two other 13-episode shows you haven't seen before instead. In the end, you walk away with three experiences instead of a single re-justified one. Now, if you're stranded somewhere, you need some anime entertainment, and all you've got is the complete set of Azumanga Daioh that you've seen already, go ahead and watch it again. However, if you have an alternative, why settle for something safe? Take a risk, and try something different. There's so much out there; something's bound to speak to you, and who knows? You may like it even better, and as a result, you'll be glad you took a chance.

Super Anime Review Round-Up!

2010-01-08T19:14:00.002-05:00

I was going to include review pictures, and I may update it later to do that, but I'm not on my own computer right now, so it's a bit cumbersome. Anyways, here's a huge anime review round-up! WOOO!

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Queen's Blade: Heir to the Throne

It should come as no surprise to the people who know me, listen to my podcast, or read my reviews that I hate Queen's Blade. I think the character designs and the storyline are somewhere between generic and abysmal, and I won't apologize for it. It's a terrible series, and anyone who likes it for what it is has mental issues. However, I see no problems exposing yourself to Queen's Blade in the way that you expose yourself to a crash between a train and a bus full of half-horse, half-alligators. You're simply amazed at how grotesque and awful everything is, but you can't look away. You have to see it through to the end. This is exactly what I did. Truth be told, I almost grew to like the second season. It was starting to get into the core of the main story with the battle for the title of Queen, and I was growing quite interested to see who would win or lose, even though I already knew how it would going to turn out. Unfortunately for me, I should've known that it was going to pull something stupid. All I can say is that friendship and Holy Angel Milk saved the day. There was little to nothing redeeming about this series, and the sooner people lose interest and allow it to die, the better it will be for all of us. Sadly, this will never happen, as it all sells far better than it should. I hate everything.

Score: 3/10

Sacred Blacksmith

Main character fights with willpower and friendship? Check. Male protagonist haunted by his own past? Check. Evil guy with silver hair and black cape who wishes to purge the rotten, sinful world? Check! You've seen this before, and you've probably seen it better. Otaku USA called this show "Claymore meets K-ON!" or something to that effect, and I agree. However, they also claimed that it's a combination that works, and if you have absolutely no taste in fantasy shows, then yes, you'd be right. However, for people with common sense and a desire for a decent show, it's a combination that puts moe where it doesn't belong with a plot that's so generic and average that it's almost offensive. Sacred Blacksmith on its own is not unwatchable, but if you're a seasoned anime fan, you've seen better and can skip this show with no regrets.

Score: 5/10

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza

This show is pretty much everything I hate about romance/harem anime combined into one piece of visual "entertainment" that serves as a reminder that there are people who question the existence of God and that they may have a valid point. Haruka has a secret, and that secret is cliches. For two seasons, this series has used every anime cliche in the book. You'd think that using all of these elements in combination makes for an incredibly safe formula, but you'd be wrong. Instead, it fails on a number of levels, and by the time of Purezza, the only saving grace is the unreasonable number of female characters in the show (and even they aren't all that "saving"). The plot is frustrating, the romance is shallow (and, as a result, often not very heartfelt), and the characters are annoying. In fact, in the last episode, Haruka accidentally gets a ping pong ball stuck between her breasts and her kimono, and to prove that she, along with many others in the show, is a colossal failure, she actually struggles to get it out, making for a "whoops, I'm showing everyone my bra!" moment. Kyaa! Ecchi! The show never goes anywhere, and whenever it's about to, someone always comes in and screws it all up. Skip the frustrations and just pretend this show doesn't exist.

Score: 2/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Leave it to Japanese animation studios to look at any cartoon and say "This show is in dire need of robots and magical girls." The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those turtles in a half-shell who fight crime and chow down on pizza, were not spared from this, as Japan produced an OVA series that featured magical fairies, transformation sequences, and combining powers to form the ultimate fighting machine. Oh, and Shredder as a samurai dragon. The story is a fairly shallow one with Krang attempting to destroy the world using mystical rocks called "mutastones," the very same stones that give the turtles their brand-new powers. A fairy named Crys Mu gets involved and enlists the help of the turtles to stop him. That's pretty much it. The animation style is actually quite similar to its original US animated counterpart, and a character like Splinter feels more at home with Japanese coming out of his mouth and his legion of actual ninjas. In spite of the anime silliness and the fish-out-of-water feeling the OVA gives off, the show manages to be somewhat entertaining. It's quite nonsensical, and there is almost nothing to write home about beyond the fact that it's a Japanese take on an American classic, but if you are a Turtles fan or a total nostalgia freak, you can get by with this one. (Parts of it reminded me of Samurai Pizza Cats, actually, so take that however you will.) It reeks of anime influences, and truth be told, it's fairly average, but it's a short watch that may keep your attention and give you a laugh or two. Don't worry. Just because it's Japanese doesn't mean it's the third movie. Which I liked, thank you very much.

Score: 6/10

Nakoruru - Ano Hito kara no Okurimono

Whenever I played Samurai Spirits, I almost exclusively played the guy with the dog. As I write this review, I don't have internet access, so I can't check Wikipedia to confirm his name, but that was pretty much my main. Rikimaru was a close second, because he was pretty much the Ryu/Ken/Sol/Ky of the series. Of course, I haven't played the series in years, so I can't say I'd still be playing either of them if I cared at all about Samurai Spirits (or even fighting games as a whole), but nevertheless, I found that I didn't really play much as Nakoruru. I don't remember why, because even in those days, I liked playing as cute girls, but I guess I thought the dog guy was too badass to pass up. Oh right, I was writing a review. The entire story revolves around Nakoruru coming to the realization through visions of some woman I don't know that her duty as a shrine maiden is far more important than her own happiness. And then, she dies. I think. There really didn't seem to be much to this, and I would hope that it was simply a part of an entire series, because if it wasn't, it suffered from the exact same problem as Mars of Destruction. It assumes that you know who everyone is, presents you with events with no prologue or closure, fails to explain anything, and then simply ends without a resolution. At least Mars of Destruction was entertaining in its own right. This really went nowhere and was quite boring. They should've just made an OVA about the guy with the dog. That would've been awesome.

Score: 1/10

Let's Nupu Nupu

Hilarious random comedy with a dash of slapstick perversion in bite-size pieces. This is what comedy anime is all about. This show follows the lives of a school nurse and the student she wants to have sex with, a couple that always ends up in some perverted situation, a cat who does pretty much everything, and so much more. Slapstick (sometimes of the "ecchi" variety) really is the name of the game here, and it works incredibly well. The humor doesn't stop, the situations get wackier without entering "monkey cheese" territory, the characters are beyond enjoyable, and at about five minutes per episode, each piece is a wonderful treat. As the mini-series drew to a close, I found myself desiring more, like an old best friend who paid me a 10-minute visit without letting me take him or her out for coffee. We need more entertainment like this, real entertainment. Everyone should nupu nupu.

Score: 9/10

11eyes

As far as I am concerned, this ended at episode 11, because nothing can really redeem it enough to have me forgive its transgressions. This was easily the biggest disappointment of the fall anime season, because it was the show I was most looking forward to and the show that managed to fail the most spectacularly. The story revolves around seven high school students who travel back and forth between the world they know and "The Red Night," a Persona 3 Dark Hour-like parallel world where they must do battle with dark forces to free a young girl from her crystal prison. There's also something about Shadow-like creatures, a prevention of the Fall, a main character, a red-haired girl who fights with a sword, a silver-haired guy who fights with his fists... If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was watching a weird version of P3: The Anime. Even without knowing much about the visual novel source material, I could tell that the storytelling in this anime adaptation was incredibly rushed and that the direction was nothing short of abysmal. Later, I find out that situations and characters were completely changed for the worse, and one particular change (Yuka being yandere) was just exceedingly annoying. Nogizaka S2 didn't disappoint me this badly, because at least I knew it was terrible from the get-go. This, however, was just depressing. Spoilers: In episode 11, everyone dies. They can stay that way.

Score: 3/10

Usagi-chan de Cue!

Girls with animal ears, huge breasts with perky nipples, and labia-length skirts with intimate detail are par for the course with Pink Pineapple, and I think it's safe to say that this show's Pangya course average is right beside Saki's infamous mahjong scores, assuming those references make any sense to you. In any case, there's a semblance of a story here with something about "merged beings," "government conspiracies," and "internal struggles with one's own humanity," but not unlike Amazing Nurse Nanako, it's fairly irrelevant and only serves as the excuse to show scantily-clad (or naked) women, constant upskirt camera shots, and female anime archetypes. On the one hand, because it's standard Pink Pineapple fare, you get what you come for: nudity and pantyshots. If that's all you want and don't much care for the lack of good plot, then you won't be disappointed, as this show delivers on that promise. On the other hand, if you want more than that, then you might as well look elsewhere, because again, that's pretty much all you're going to get. It's not unwatchable, and if you're a 13-yr old anime newbie in the late 90s/early 2000s before things like Danbooru and 4chan were as big as they are, you're probably going to love this. All you need is the ability to bend space-time. Good luck with that.

Score: 5/10

The Five Star Stories

Within the first ten minutes, I was already met with gender confusion. I haven't seen this level of androgeny in anime in a while, and I'm not sure whether to contribute it to the art style of the 70s and 80s or the material itself. Perhaps it's a little bit of both. I'm not exactly sure why this show has the title it does, but I wouldn't really pursue it. This was an enjoyable watch, and nitpicking would just be petty. It is a story of political corruption, android girls that can control battle mechs, the concept of fate, and a bunch of awesome god-like warriors purging evil to bring forth the birth of a new age. The Sisters of Fate from Greek mythology play a big part in this movie, as the female protagonists are not only named after them but also, by the end, share similar purposes. As a stand-alone story, this was not bad at all, and I found myself enjoying the old-school art style, the incredibly badass Mirage Knights, and the mecha designs, which, for whatever reason, were reminiscient of the Gears from Xenogears. All the information presented over the course of the show slowly pieces together, and when it's over, the little twists and turns were quite satisfying. However, if you're not a fan of the art style or want your plots a little more fleshed out, you probably won't enjoy this as much. Despite those shortcomings, however, I'd say this is a worth a watch. Oh, and if you figure out what the title means, let me know.

Score: 7/10

Shoujo Sect ~Innocent Lovers~

Perhaps I am not well-versed in the happenings of all-girls schools, but if it's anything like this, it makes perfect sense as to why so many male protagonists cross-dress to get inside them. I love that these places are portrayed as dens of debauchery disguised as institutes for learning. I'll begin by saying that I do not believe there is such a thing as a good hentai anime. There's humorous hentai. There's ridiculous hentai. There is no *good* hentai. I'm told that Bible Black is some exception to this rule, but I'm quite skeptical. I think Tournament of the Gods may have been okay, but I was 13 when I watched only the first 15 minutes of it, and my memory of it is a bit fuzzy, so I may not be remembering it all that correctly. It may also be somewhat unfair to rate hentai on the same scale as other anime, since it sacrifices much of its appeal for sex. I don't know. Whatever the case, if anyone tries to convince you that Shoujo Sect is good, they're delusional. Maybe it's good for hentai, and maybe it's good because it's one of the few yuri shows out there, but that does not make it a good piece of animated entertainment. To be fair, there are a few things that this show did okay. First of all, the presentation is actually pretty good. With the setting of a preppy all-girls school comes this hint of "high society" class that is a welcome change from your average ambience, and the sex itself is thankfully short and almost tasteful in a way. In addition, there's a decent level of romantic drama that is, again, a welcome change from the hentai norm. It doesn't compare to the likes of other shoujo-ai shows such as Strawberry Panic or, dare I even say, Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~, but for a show of this nature, it's acceptable. The soundtrack is highly inoffensive, because most of it is classical, public domain tracks. I also want to throw in that when someone punches someone else who deserves it in the face, I love it, so that's a free point for this show. Finally, and most importantly, there is no rape. That alone gives it quite a few brownie points. However, the other side of the coin shows that it suffers from the same problems that every hentai show seems to suffer from: a handful of unreasonable situations, unnatural dialogue, a relatively bland story, and the law that states it is illegal to kiss another human being without drooling uncontrollably like one of Pavlov's dogs. If you're in the market for some yuri hentai anime, your choices are pretty limited, so this isn't a bad choice. However, like nearly all hentai, if you expect anything actually "good" out of it, you'll get nothing and you'll like it.

Score: 6/10

RE: Cutey Honey

In the world of Honey Kisaragi, every female has ridiculous breasts, especially if those females are robots, giant dragon things, or something in-between. This re-telling of the infamous Cutie Honey storyline is how a remake should be. Updated for a more recent age, it offers superb animation with vibrant colors, a rearranged soundtrack, and excellent pacing for a three episode OVA series. The animation style is nicely exaggerated in a way that makes the show very reminiscent of old "wham-biff-zonk" episodes of Batman, which is definitely a good thing, and everything seems pretty intact and faithful to its original, bouncy source material, though I admit I didn't see much of the original Cutie Honey. Personally, I love the exaggeration of the police force as small, playful children, as they tend to be fairly useless in many superhero stories. Although the story is enjoyable, it's nothing amazing by any means, but it's a fine piece of work nonetheless. If you're interested in Cutie Honey and don't have the patience to watch/find the original series or the live-action adaptation, this is more than worth your time.

Score: 8/10

Eve no Jikan

I wonder if Asimov foresaw his laws changing the world of fantasy stories for ages to come. Stories about robots striving for humanity are definitely interesting ones, and Time of Eve is easily one of the best I've seen. A small cafe where humans and androids can co-exist without knowing whether someone is one or the other sets the stage, and watching as androids try to obtain humanity and humans try to understand androids as more than simple robots is fascinating to me. As a result, this series really struck a chord. The story is short and sweet, cut into six individual 15-minute tales that bind together to show the evolution of the main character's mind and soul. Everything is superbly animated with CG stylings that combine 2-D and 3-D with breathtaking results. It's touching, it's engaging, and it only got better as it progressed. Everything about this was incredible, and I would love to see more of it. You owe it to yourself to watch Eve no Jikan, no questions asked.

Score: 10/10

Angel Tales/Tenshi no Shippo

The time when the R1 anime industry was willing to pick up and release anything and everything is never more apparent than when shows like Angel Tales go out on DVD outside of Japan. The story revolves around a young man named Goro Mutsumi who loves animals. Many of the animals he took care of return to him after their deaths in the form of young girls who call him "Master" and wish to devote their lives to him in return for his love during their life. At the time that this review is being written, the second episode is currently playing, and I believe there is some greater destiny for our male protagonist that these girls are trying to steer him towards, but that's quite irrelevant. This show is terrible in every aspect, from the plot to the setting to the character designs to the voice acting, both English and Japanese. The dub is especially terrible, as there are some well-known English and Japanese voice actresses involved doing less-than-stellar performances. This show is appalling. It's Nogizaka Purezza levels of appalling. I'm glad that we are seeing less shows like this (even in a world where something like Nogizaka is allowed to exist), because the industry really can't afford to release utter garbage of this caliber anymore. Because I only have one DVD, I honestly can't give this show a proper rating (in my opinion), though I don't imagine it's going to get much better than this. In fact, it really only has one direction it can go, and it's definitely not up. If you want girls, masters, and a plot that isn't totally vomit-inducing, you'd be better off watching He Is My Master. I guess.

Score: 1/10

Kara no Kyoukai

So there's this girl who has crazy eyes that allow her to do crazy things. I think her name was Canaan... Oh wait, wrong show. So there's this series about someone named Shiki who has the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, which allows a person to see lines that basically act as the seams that hold them together. Severing those lines can and will cause the instant destruction of the object or person. A self-proclaimed magus named Aozaki appears before Shiki and explains the power of the Mystic Eyes and teaches Shiki how to control it. Thus, Shiki, with knife in hand, must stand up against the supernatural. Shiki befriends a young woman named Arcueid who turns out to be the queen of the vampires or something... Wait, that's not right either. So there's this orange-haired kid who lives in a mystical apartment complex, and I think he becomes some guy named Archer... No, that's wrong, too. Wasn't there some sister with long black hair and some other girl in a Catholic nun outfit robe or something...? I don't think I remember what this series is about, so I can't review it. Sorry.

Scores:
KnK1: 8/10
KnK2: 8/10
KnK3: 8/10
KnK4: 8/10
KnK5: 9/10
KnK6: 7/10
KnK7: 10/10

Trapeze

If there was ever a show that required the 3-episode test, this is it. In a world where everyone seems to have problems, Dr. Irabu, a crazy hospital psychologist, is there to give his patients a shot. The story follows a handful of people as they attempt to overcome their psychological issues, be they OCD, panic disorders, or even narcissism. This was a very interesting watch, and I'm glad that I saw it to the end. However, gg, the sub group who translated it, seems to believe that it's the best show of the 2009 fall season, something I quite disagree with. The way this show was pitched to me made it seem like the second coming of Anime Jesus, and it really isn't. The stylized nature of the show is quite alienating, and while it does manage to normalize itself over time and, in some ways, grow on you, it's really not for everyone, and I feel that too many people suffered from OCD and not enough of any of the other various disorders out there. I can say, however, that there is an episode that revolves around cell phone addiction that I think everyone needs to watch, especially teenagers of this generation. It's quite intriguing and easily the best episode of the series. Unfortunately, too many others fall flat and just aren't that interesting. They're not bad; they're enough. Trapeze is a good show. It's just not a great one. Normally, I would give this show a 7, but it really was very well thought out, so I have to give credit where credit is due. Also, Mayumi is pretty hot.

Score: 8/10

Sora no Otoshimono

This was the biggest surprise of the 2009 fall season. I really didn't think this show was going to amount to much, but it was quite a joy and, often times, literally a blast. This series had an unmatched charm about it with the big breasted Angeloid Ikaros, who is pretty much KOS-MOS levels of awesome, exploding proximity mine panties, "New World" exploration, and your usual student council president with excessive funds and even more excessive malice. I can't really explain why, but SoraOto managed to exceed my expectations to become one of the best original shows of the season. Comic perversion with a cute little story in the center made for an interesting and surprisingly good combination with a satisfactory ending. This show certainly won't be for everyone, but it's a pleasure to watch all the same. I would definitely recommend this one.

Score: 8/10

Seitokai no Ichizon

Nothing happens in this show. Seriously. Less happens in this student council's lives than Lucky Star. There's no character progression, no setting changes, and tons of referential humor. It's boring. It's meaningless. It's a waste of time. Yet, it's incredibly endearing and has a charm about it that makes you want to keep watching. You watch as four girls and one guy who wants a harem with all of them sit around do and talk about next to nothing. I don't even know what else to say. If you liked Lucky Star, it's worth a shot, I think.

Score: 7/10

Shin Koihime Musou

This wasn't supposed to be as entertaining as it was... but it just was. I had my reservations with the first season, but there was just something about this one that took me by surprise and just never let go. This continuation picks up where the first season left off and leads to the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which ends up being an idol sing-off between warring factions. That should be as fun to watch as it is, but it ended up being so anyway. Who knows why! I think it might be all the Musou Orochi Z I've been playing as of late, because while I finished the last episode, I really just wanted to play it and a game version of Koihime Musou with hack-and-slash gameplay and no sex. I can dream, I guess. If you liked the first season, you'll love this one. That's all I can say about it, really. Oh, right. Butterfly Mask is the best character ever. EVER.

Score: 8/10

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Hope you enjoyed, because there's more soon!

Children's Card Game

2009-12-15T05:43:00.001-05:00

Weiß/Weiss Survive is the biggest advertisement for the Persona series I've ever seen. The show is about two students who get sucked into a weird dimension where everyone plays the card game Weiß/Weiss Schwarz, an actual TCG in Japan. The show comes in bite-size pieces at about 5 minutes an episode, and it's a quick distraction. There's nothing all that spectacular about it, though depending on who you are, it could very well be enough to get a chuckle out of you. The biggest thing I noticed, though, are the cards they decided to use within the show. The card game does consist of a number of properties include Lucky Star, Sengoku Basara, and Da Capo, but one really stood out the most.

If the card isn't displaying some character from the show, nearly everything is related to either Persona 3 or Persona 4. Much like the giant Koromaru card at the top of this entry, assorted Persona cards appear, including "Main Character and Thanatos" with the popular picture of MC, Junpei, and Yukari in the classroom with Thanatos looming over them, the P4 Main Character, and, if I'm remembering correctly, a P4 All-Out Attack card. I can say that it makes me want to play the Persona games, but it doesn't really make me want to play Weiß/Weiss Schwarz. Plus one to Atlus, I guess!

I should probably get around to finishing Persona 4...

Reaching You

2009-11-26T07:42:00.003-05:00

Kimi ni Todoke is genuinely worth your time. Fall 2009 has been full of subpar shows and general mediocrity, though a handful of things have been fairly enjoyable. The likes of Scared Blacksmith, Kämpfer, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Purezza can (and should) be ignored, but we have been given quite a few gems like Nyan Koi! and, dare I say, the ridiculous Sora no Otoshimono. I've found a number of the shows this season entertaining, but no show has been as much of a joy to watch as Kimi ni Todoke.

I went into this show with the assumption, based on a few things I'd heard, that the main character Sawako Kuronuma was somewhat whiny and generally uninteresting, so I kept my shields up just to make sure. Immediately, I noticed that the art was not something along the recent anime norms. The art and animation is decidedly different and, to some onlookers, somewhat off-putting, but it has a charm that takes the best of the overexaggerated shoujo manga style and manages to make it fun to look at. Shortly thereafter, I found that Sawako was voiced by Mamiko Noto, a woman with a distinctive, breathy sound that, thanks to Sengoku Basara and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, I'd grown quite tired of hearing. In fact, she's in a number of shows this season, so I've been ODing on Noto a bit. However, to my surprise, her voice is not only perfect for Sawako, it's downright refreshing in a way.

Sawako herself is a girl who personifies social awkwardness. She's never had many friends, and people tend to avoid her for reasons obvious to nearly everyone except her. When she was younger, because of her appearance, she'd been given the nickname "Sadako" to match the infamous character from "The Ring", and the name continued to stick, allowing for an unsettling aura that tended to keep people away (and, in some instances, cower in fear). Because of her lack of social experience, she really isn't sure how to deal with people, and eventually, she simply came to terms with things and accepted being alone. However, as certain events come to pass, she begins to interact with people, make friends, and break out of her shell. There's something incredibly cute and fun about watching her character evolve and learn to exist within the world around her.

Sawako becomes somewhat lovestruck with a young man and fellow classmate named Shouta Kazehaya, as he was one of the first people to ever show her kindness despite her appearance and the stigma that surrounds her. Because of his actions, the gears begin to turn, and the mechanism that causes her to grow as a character begins to move. The core of the story appears to revolve around Sawako finally living the life that she's always wanted, with friends that give her a reason to smile, and the evolution of the romance between Sawako and Kazehaya, two aspects that are genuinely interesting to watch.

I'd never read the manga, so I didn't know what to expect, and I have to say that I am just surprised at how good this show is. Each episode is a joy to watch, and I feel satisfied at the end of the every episode, something I certainly can't say for something like Kämpfer (which I am noting, because the way the characters dance in the ED actually pisses me off, which is kinda stupid, but I digress.) The story of this show is great, the characters often feel real, and the presentation brings it all together. If you like romantic, slice-of-life shows, let Kimi ni Todoke be the one show you watch this season. You won't be disappointed.

Nothing Is Sacred

2009-11-16T14:36:00.004-05:00

Sacred Blacksmith is an insult to my intelligence and my love for the animated medium. I initially had no interest in the series, partially because I've been watching so many other things this season, so I ignored it. Nanael decided to pick up the show and watch it ever-so-slowly, and the only things I really heard about it were something about katanas and that it wasn't bad. Well, one of those two things is correct.

Sacred Blacksmith is about Cecily Cambell, a former noble and proclaimed knight. She, like many others in her stereotype class, is not proficient at fighting but appears to get by on sheer will and determination alone. Her goal in life is to be a powerful knight that does not use weapons to kill people but to protect her land, two things that she eventually learns cannot be exclusive of one another. By chance, she meets a young man named Luke Ainsworth, a blacksmith who wields a "katana," a carefully-crafted sword with the ability to cut through other swords. Cecily wants a piece of that action, so she befriends Luke and his assistant Lisa and tries to convince them to make her a katana so that she may have a weapon powerful enough to protect her people. Meanwhile, dark forces are amassing in secret, and a mysterious man cloaked in black is basically making contracts with the devil and turning men into monsters of destruction. You'd think a story of this nature, while somewhat cliche, would have the potential to be fairly entertaining and full of the enchantment and wonder that a setting like that tends to convey, and you'd be right. That story does have potential. Unfortunately for the viewers, we're instead served a meal of mediocrity in which the chef accidentally added too much moe and not enough of anything else.

This show excudes the exact same essence that made me hate the first season of Queen's Blade: it tries to take itself very seriously in spite of the subject matter and presentation. The very first thing you will notice about this show that comes off as, well, a bit off is Cecily herself. Having seen Queen's Blade (or really most anime, for that matter), this shouldn't bother me the way it does, but lately, it's been noticeably agitating for me. I do not like her outfit design at all. There are aspects of it that work (and they should, since animators have been doing designs like this for years), and then there are things like her armor and head ornament that just don't make any sense. Generally, knights, male or female, wear chestplate armor, and we know what to expect out of them when equipped by specific genders. Most notably, female knights will have a more pronounced chest to accomodate their (usually ample) breasts. That's all well and good. Hell, even Queen's Blade manages to (sort of) pull this off, so of course, I would expect something as generic as Sacred Blacksmith to do something similar. Instead, we're not shown armor. We're shown a steel mold around Cecily's breasts. Perhaps I'm spoiled by the likes of Grolla Seyfarth of Rosenkreuzstilette, and I'm going to toss aside practicality issues, but I feel like this serves so greater purpose than to basically put her chest on display, especially since it cracks and falls apart pretty early on, causing Luke to have a nosebleed. Yeah, you heard that right.

Speaking of, seven episodes in, breast jokes are in full-force since four new female characters have been added into the mix and can't seem to get past how "big" Cecily's chest is, which isn't really that big given what I've seen come from anime during the fall season alone. Even so, they can't stop pointing out each others' measurements and even attempt (and succeed) to grope one another in the obligatory bath scene. The seventh episode brought us a sub-plot in which many of the girls, including Cecily, must dress up as maids and do housework. Cecily ends up running into Luke, who comments positively on her outfit. However, she grows incredibly embarrassed and, in that tried-and-true Love Hina style, punches him in the face and runs away. Yes, this is pretty much what you can expect from Sacred Blacksmith. I like to think that shows like this can successfully avoid getting hit by the moe train, but then, I know better.

I know I'm not the only one who saw this.

"Wait, Letty!" you say. "What about that mysterious man in the black cloak that is clearly not Siegfried, the mysterious man in the black cloak that was introduced at that one council meeting that wasn't really addressed very well and was pretty much tossed aside?" That's a good question! They haven't really gone into his intentions from what I can tell, but you would think that a series that only twelve episodes long would make sure to continually address the bad guys and not do things that make you forget that there is supposed to be something big going on with that whole "people turning into monsters" thing. Perhaps the series is just so generally uninteresting that when it does happen, the impact is so light that it means almost nothing to me. I can already tell that Cecily will never be able to overcome the fact that she is flat-out terrible in battle and will continue to get by on willpower alone despite the fact that she has a Demon Sword that shoots laser beams made of wind, and I can already tell that the villian will turn out to be incredibly power but will fall after a long-winded speech and the power of friendship. Oh, and someone's probably going to die, and it'll be an emotional scene that will either drive the heroes to win the final battle or will act as the epilogue in which they use said death to further pursue the dream of protecting the people and the land.

Sacred Blacksmith could very well throw me a curveball and prove me wrong, but given what I've seen so far and what I'm expecting out of it, curves aren't very common when the ball is on top of a tee. In short, don't waste your time with this show. I'll do it for you.

Letty's Top Ten Touhou Tunes: Follow-Up

2009-11-13T11:21:00.000-05:00

I'm actually a bit disappointed in myself for this. I actually neglected to listen to the second disc of 幺樂団の歴史１ ~ Akyu's Untouched Score Vol.1, and in doing so, I missed two tracks that I love, one of which probably would've made my top ten, had I remembered. I would adjust the list, but doing so would kick "博麗神社境内" off the list, and I'm quite willing to do that. With that, I think I'll go ahead and include these tracks, alongside my Honorable Mentions.

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Addendum #1: "Dreamy pilot" from 東方幻想郷　~ Lotus Land Story

This is an unused track from Lotus Land Story, a track that was replaced by the popular "アリスマエステラ (Alice Maestra)". In listening to the game version, I think I actually like it a lot more than the album version. It's a very pretty song and probably would've made my top 10 list in place of "博麗神社境内", but I can't say for sure. I really do love them both equally, so unless I thought really hard about it, I can't say which one would have trumped the other. All I can say is that "Dreamy pilot" is an excellent work.

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Alright, from here, I'm going to pick a song from each game that I feel should be considered worthy of "Honorable Mention", so here we go!

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Honorable Mention: "天使伝説 (Angel's Legend)" from 東方靈異伝　〜 The Highly Responsive to Prayers

I know this theme belongs to two bosses, but being the Mima fan I am, I have to credit it to her. This is my favorite theme in all of HRtP, and rightful so; it sounds nothing like the rest of the game's music, making it stand out as a stellar track that kinda fills you with a sense of dread and need to take out the boss swiftly, else face extreme consequences. Or maybe that's just me. Regardless, this is an awesome song, and it needs a lot more exposure than it has.

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Honorable Mention: "She's in a temper!!" from 東方封魔録　〜 The Story of Eastern Wonderland

Rika, the original Nitori. I don't know why I love this theme the way I do. It may be that it's the first real Touhou boss theme ever, and that just makes it special in its own way. I really like the song, and I think it works very well as a Stage 1 boss tune. It's funny that this is one of the only fights I can think of where you don't actually attack the boss character but the contraption she has constructed. Also, she made a tank. Tanks in Gensokyo. You don't see that much nowadays. Rika owns.

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Honorable Mention: "夢は時空を越えて (A Dream Transcending Space-time)" from 東方夢時空　〜 The Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream

Not since PoDD has there been a title screen theme this good, and I don't know why. It may be because it's a title screen theme, and really, who spends that much time on the title screen? Even so, this is one of the most overlooked themes in the PC-98 library, and it's a shame. Again, I really think that the best overall musical score in the series comes from PoDD, and I wish we had more like it. This song is just so good, and it really sets the mood. I love it.

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Honorable Mention: "霊戦　～ Perdition crisis (Spirit Battle ~ Perdition crisis)" from 東方幻想郷　〜 Lotus Land Story

Elly's actual boss theme is often overshadowed by the song "Bad Apple!!", which I think isn't all that good at all. I'm a big fan of the remix that from the PV I posted about before, but I find the original to be really lacking. I can't quite pinpoint what makes this track so good, but there's just something about it that's really cool. It has a really nice, almost sad, melody, and it just kind of touches me in a way. Maybe Elly's upset that "Bad Apple!!" is a more popular song? I could see that.

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Honorable Mention: "夢想時空 (Dimension of Reverie)" from 東方怪綺談　〜 Mystic Square

Stage 2 is the point at which the cast of Mystic Square begins to dive into the world of the Makai, and this track is just perfect for the image of the player character flying at high speed into the darkness to face Shinki and her minions. For this reason, this is one of my favorite tracks in the entire game. It just gives off a mood that a lot of songs within the entirety of the Touhou series can't seem to convey, and for that reason, it gets incredibly high marks in my book.

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Honorable Mention: "妖魔夜行 (Apparitions Stalk the Night)" from 東方紅魔郷　〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

This song is short and sweet, but it gives off a playful feeling that compliments Rumia's nature and the feel of the fight. And I'm serious when I say it's short. The game rip mp3 is 56 seconds long, making it one of the shortest tracks in all of Touhou. Luckily, it's for an easy fight, so it doesn't have time to really grate on you. I really do like this theme, though. That's pretty much it.

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Honorable Mention: "広有射怪鳥事　～ Till When? (Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird ~ Till When?)" from 東方妖々夢　〜 Perfect Cherry Blossom

This gives off that same feeling that "天使伝説" gives off in my opinion: a sense of dread and need to take out the boss swiftly, else face extreme consequences. You can almost feel that Youmu isn't about to put up with your crap and will do whatever it takes to end you and protect Yuyuko. It's rather interesting. Its chaotic nature always carries into the fight, in which sometimes, you don't know what to expect out of Youmu's swift movements, and it keeps you on your toes. I know a lot of people who don't really like this song much, but they're all dumb and wrong.

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Honorable Mention: "エクステンドアッシュ　～蓬莱人 (Extend Ash ~ Hourai Victim)" from 東方永夜抄　〜 Imperishable Night

This song feels very flighty to me. I don't know if it's very suitable as an Extra Stage theme, but on its own, I think it's a really cool sounding song. It feels similar to "夢想時空" in its feeling of soaring speed, with nice build-ups and wind-downs, adjusting for the sense of discovery in an unknown territory. Or maybe I'm just hearing something that isn't there. Who knows! All I can say is that this song is a nice gem in the underwhelming soundtrack of Imperishable Night.

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Honorable Mention: "花の映る塚 (The Mound where the Flowers Reflect)" from 東方花映塚　〜 Phantasmagoria of Flower View

The pre-battle theme is probably one of the most well-composed themes in the entire game. ZUN's intention was to give the song a style that instills a hint of nervousness in the player prior to the match, and I think it serves this purpose well. The bass acts as something of a heartbeat, and it gets under your skin. How often do you really sit down and listen to this song when playing PoFV? Maybe you should start~

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Honorable Mention: "御柱の墓場　～ Grave of Being (Cemetery of Onbashira ~ Grave of Being)" from 東方風神録　〜 Mountain of Faith

Kanako's stage theme is a very fitting beginning for a boss fight with the best theme in all of Touhou. It gives off that awesome feeling of "This is it. This is the home stretch. Everything we've been wanting to accomplish lies at the end of this path. I hope we're ready, because there's no turning back." Can you really say that for a lot of themes in the series? This song is unbelievably cool in my eyes.

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Honorable Mention: "有頂天変　～ Wonderful Heaven (Catastrophe in Bhava-agra ~ Wonderful Heaven)" from 東方緋想天　〜 Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

This one gets a mention, because it's the only side-game, original character theme that I like. Suika and Iku have incredibly lackluster themes, in my opinion. Maybe it has something to do with the letters "I", "U", and "K" in their names. Who knows!

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Honorable Mention: "業火マントル (Hellfire Mantle)" from 東方地霊殿　〜 Subterranean Animism

Alright, this theme does do the same thing that Kanako's stage theme does, just in a different way. This song does make me feel like I'm about to dive into a fiery world, and given the nature of NUCLEAR FUSION (and the name of the song), this may very well be the intended effect. Well, it works, and it works perfectly. It's almost foreboding, and it kind of gives me this feeling that when I reach nuke crow, I'm going to inevitably fail. Of course, I still haven't played SA, so I can't say if I would end up failing, but considering how good I am at Touhou games, I probably would!

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Honorable Mention: "法界の火 (Fires of Hokkai)" from 東方星蓮船　〜 Undefined Fantastic Object

Just take a listen. This is another one of those "This is it; we're almost done" tracks, but it conveys a very different, almost unknown feeling. Rather than finally finding the objective that you're seeking, you really don't know what waits for you behind the final door. That's a feeling that I flat-out love, a feeling that most games as a whole can't convey well. There's a finality to this track, which I think is a great place to end this.

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And there you have it. That's the last time I ever talk about Touhou music. Well, until Touhou 13 comes out, because really, if ZUN keeps improving like he has, who knows what surprises he'll have in store!

Letty's Top Ten Touhou Tunes

2009-11-09T14:24:00.004-05:00

For this entry, I randomly decided to take my favorite Touhou Project songs and themes and place them in a Top 10 list. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, as there are over 200 songs in the series (and I know; I listened to ALL of them in trying to write up this list), and I love so many of them. So here is it, Letty's Top 10 Touhou Tunes!

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10. "博麗神社境内 (Hakurei Shrine Grounds)" from 東方封魔録　~ The Story of Eastern Wonderland

Technically, this isn't in any Touhou game, but considering its history and availability in the PC-98 game music boxes, I think it counts. This is an unused track from Touhou 2; it was originally meant to be used at the first stage theme in place of "博麗　~ Eastern Wind", and while I think that song is good, this one is far superior. It contains an air of sadness combined with a feeling of determination, as Reimu must once again set out into the unknown to do battle with evil forces that have put Gensokyo in a dire situation. I think this track is an excellent start to Story of Eastern Wonderland and a worthy start of my top 10 list.

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9. "U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？ (U.N. Owen was her?)" from 東方紅魔郷　~ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

This is certainly a song that needs no introduction, as it's become one of the most popular tracks from all of Touhou. I'm a huge fan of the tunes, and given that, you would think that this would be far higher on my top 10 list, but that isn't the case. Anyway, I've never been a fan of the instrumentation of the EoSD tunes, and I'm probably one of the few people within the fandom that doesn't find the in-game version of Chinese Tea to be all that enjoyable. However, this song seems to work incredibly well. It sounds so twisted and unstable, much like the character it represents, and I think the chaos it conveys is quite fitting for a boss of her caliber.

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8. "Reincarnation" from 東方夢時空　~ The Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream

Mima will return one day. I can feel it in my bones. In all seriousness, I'm a huge fan of this track. I can't entirely place what's special about the composition of the track in particular, but it just feels like a quality track for a quality character. There is definitely something about the track that suits a spiritual entity like Mima. To be honest, musically, I think Phantasmoria of Dim.Dream has one of the, if not THE, best overall soundtracks in all of Touhou Project, and tracks like this contribute to its exceptionality. I do have to say that I'm not actually that big of a fan of the arrange featured on ZUN's "Dolls of Pseudo Paradise" album, as I rather enjoy the synths of the FM-86 far more. That said, Reincarnation is an incredible song and easily fits into my top 10.

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7. "星の器 ~ Casket of Star (Vessel of Stars ~ Casket of Star)" from 東方幻想郷　~ Lotus Land Story

The first time I had ever heard this song was from a Stepmania file, and from that moment, I was addicted. I don't think that it's very fair that Marisa has so many musical themes, but that's neither here nor there. This is an awesome high-energy theme and fits Marisa's energetic nature and powerful abilities, and it stands as one of my favorite PC-98 themes of all-time. There isn't much else I can say about the track that can't be conveyed by listening to it yourself.

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6. "信仰は儚き人の為に (Faith is for the Transient People)" from 東方風神録　~ Mountain of Faith

Mountain of Faith is the point where I think ZUN's musical works began to take a different and much better direction. I'm a huge fan of the instrumentation and composition of the themes that have come out since the release of MoF, and I'm glad that such stylings are not going anywhere. I really don't think Sanae is all that great of a character, but she definitely gets credit for having an awesome musical theme. There's an element of peacefulness about the piece that I really enjoy mixed with that feeling of determination that made "博麗神社境内" so enjoyable. It's a very enjoyable song all-around, and it's definitely one of the better Windows themes.

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5. "ブクレシュティの人形師 (The Doll Maker of Bucuresti)" from 東方妖々夢　~ Perfect Cherry Blossom

Now. we're at the top 5! Alice's stage theme from PCB has always been one of my favorite Touhou themes ever, because it has this mysterious ambience about it that works well with the stage having almost no visible environment beyond the blue void. It's a very pretty theme that works so very well. What's nice is that so many remixes I've heard of the theme seem to convey that same mysterious nature; REDALiCE's remix "Volar" from SCARLET EYES is the first to come to my mind. It's gorgeous and one of ZUN's best piano-centered works.

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4. "小さな小さな賢将 (A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander)" from 東方星蓮船　~ Undefined Fantastic Object

When I first heard this song from the UFO demo, I said it was, flat-out, the best Windows Touhou song to date, and I still think it's one of the best. Really, I think a song as awesome as this is wasted on a Stage 1 boss. The song has excudes playfulness and danger, which, I feel, are far more fitting for a Stage 3 or Stage 4 boss. Well, enough complaining. This song is just awesome, and it helps cement UFO as, in my eyes, having the best soundtrack of all the Windows Touhou games. It's just a damn fun song to listen to, and I'm seriously impressed with how ZUN comes with gems like this even after 12+ games. I can't give him high marks for art or even character design, but above all, he is an awesome musician.

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3. "不思議の国のアリス (Alice in Wonderland)" from 東方怪綺談　~ Mystic Square

Hands down, this is the best song that the PC-98 series has to offer. It's easily the prettiest track in all five games and is the most well-made. There isn't anything else to say about it. Listen to it, and try to tell me you disagree. This song is beautiful and works so incredibly well with Alice's character from Mystic Square. Every time I listen to it, it just leaves me in awe. One other thing that I love about this song is that it's one of the longer tracks in Touhou, as it doesn't loop until around the 3:10 mark. It's an amazing song and deserves its spot in my top 3.

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2. "キャプテン・ムラサ (Captain Murasa)" from 東方星蓮船　~ Undefined Fantastic Object

Captain Minamitsu Murasa has one of the worst character designs in recent years, but her theme more than makes up for it. This has to be one of the best songs I've ever heard to come out of ZUN's musical library. I think what really brings it together for me is the combination of the ZUN stylings we've come to know and love with the solidity of rock guitars and drums, making for a theme so badass that when she makes her entrance, you can't help but excitedly say "That is CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOTHERFUCKING MURASA!" There's only one song that, in my mind, even comes close to beating this one out.

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1. "神さびた古戦場　～ Suwa Foughten Field (The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field)" from 東方風神録　~ Mountain of Faith

And that's this one. There is no greater song in the world of Touhou that conveys the ominous feeling of battling an almighty, godly, regal force than this one. I don't consider myself a Kanako fan, but the woman commands respect, and she's got a theme that lets you know that she means business. Suwako may be the figurehead of the Moriya Shrine, but she doesn't have a theme that's nearly as incredible. This is it. This is my favorite song out of all 16 Touhou games. We'll see if the 13th Touhou game can do better.

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And that's it! Post a comment, and let me know if you think any of my choices are unjustified. Oh, and don't whine to me about not including "Border of Life" or "Necrofantasia". "Border of Life" isn't that good, and "少女幻葬〜 Necro Fantasy" is infinitely better. In my next post, I may post some honorable mentions. See you then!

Weekly vs. Marathon

2009-11-02T20:13:00.002-05:00

Some people prefer to watch a show one episode at a time as it airs. Others prefer to wait until the entire series is finished and watch it all at once, marathoning it in as many sessions as it takes. This raises an interesting question: which method is best? Both take the same amount of time, and both result in having a series completed. Is there really anything else to it? In my opinion, yes, there is.

This thought came to my attention when Vic Viper completed the second season of Spice & Wolf and gave a 9/10. We both appeared to have the same opinions of the show, the same general feelings of the characters within, and all that jazz. If that's the case, then why did we have different scores? Given, it's a one-point difference (I gave it a 10/10), but it's a difference nonetheless. Why didn't we see it exactly eye-to-eye? I believe it's because I experienced something in watching it that he did not. I watched the show weekly as it aired, and most often, by the end of an episode, I was on the edge of my seat. The episode felt too short, and the airing of the next felt like an eternity away. The excellent storytelling of the series, left me wanting more at the end of each 24-minute part, and I could not wait to see how the next episode would resolve the conflicts set in the previous. Vic, on the other hand, had the privilege and luxury of being able to see these resolutions immediately by having the entire series on hand to watch whenever. This is where the differences truly lie. He never got to experience the anxiousness and the excitement of waiting for the next part to come around. Instead, he handled it at his own leisure. I feel that this ruins part of the experience of any series, this one especially, and really, I feel that such an experience can be just as valuable as the content of the series itself.

Not to say, however, that marathoning a series is without its merits. This is especially true when it comes to a bad show. Sometimes, it's just not worth it to follow a series like Kashimashi - Girl Meets Girl as it comes out, and you really just want to get it over with. In another example, I have marathoned two shows that I loved: ef - a tale of memories and Toradora!. With a show like Toradora!, the writing doesn't lend itself entirely to suspense in the style of Spice & Wolf S2, so marathoning really doesn't ruin any effects, and ef - a tale of memories, while featuring some suspenseful parts, had a high focus placed on visuals and emotional setting. Seldom was I met with a pressing need to figure out how Renji and Chihiro were going to overcome their conflict, though I certainly wanted to know. The show really had so much going for it beyond that, so marathoning it, in my opinion, didn't really cause any problems as far as that went. So sometimes, marathoning can turn out alright.

I cannot tell how to be prepared for different instances, and I can't say for sure which method is the better of the two. It may work differently for different viewers, and it may not. There are definitely merits in them both, though I truly feel that if a person only marathons shows, like Vic Viper and Nanael usually do, they can very easily miss out on a key factor to the presentation of the story, and that would be a shame.

Shadow Complex

2009-10-28T01:59:00.001-04:00

The talk of Touhou videos right now is this amazing Touhou music video set to "Bad Apple!!" from the album EXSERENS from doujin music circle Alstroemeria Records.

(Nicovideo)

This has to be the best Touhou music video I've ever seen. There are quite a few out there that I'm very fond of, but this one in particular is spectacular enough that it deserves unbridled praise. Even as I type this, I'm watching the video on loop. I love the song, but something about the combination of the audio and visuals touches me deep. I'm in awe at the amount of work and artistic talent required to make something of this caliber, and I really wish I had the skills and the tools to create a music video this stellar.

When I linked a friend of mine to this video, I told him that "there's something about the interpretations of the characters and the fluid motions they go through that makes the Touhou girls seem real, very feminine, and, in a word, beautiful." And it's true. As soon as I started watching the characters as they danced on screen, I don't think it really hit me how incredibly gorgeous everyone really was until Mokou came on screen. Even the Prismriver Sisters, characters that I don't really like, look amazing and appealing in an artistic sense, and then Suika's presence sealed the deal. This video has set the new bar to which Touhou music videos from here on have to live up. This video gets a 10/10, no question.

Ignorance Is (Not) Bliss

2009-10-24T19:06:00.003-04:00

I've decided that I'm going to attempt to provide a new entry on this blog every week. It'll force me to get my creative juices flowing, and it'll give this place content. Vic Viper and Nanael certainly won't be contributing any time soon, so I might as well be the one to get the gears turning.

WinD, I have a bone to pick with you. I trusted you. I trusted that a group that got started because of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni would be able to get the title of the last Rei chapter right, but it seems that my faith in you was ill-placed. Even ASR managed to get close with "Day-Crushing Chapter," but when the story is taken straight from a game called Higurashi Daybreak, you would think that you manage something a little better than "Lunch-Breaking Chapter." This is especially considering how incredibly slow you guys are at releases, so I assumed you would take that time to do a little research on the series that you originally came together to bring to the community instead of making what amounts to a terrible guess. As I write this, I am waiting for an official response from you on your forums, and I will continue this article when I receive that response.

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The official response from JJS, WinD's encoder, is "You know, I thought that sounded weird but I figured someone else would catch it and correct it if necessary but due to the order of tasks it accidentally got skipped. We're currently discussing the need for a v2 as the current title doesn't really make sense." This is good to hear. It really does bother me that this is even an issue to begin with, though. I won't fault them too much, since they're probably going to correct it, but I'm going to rant anyway.

As a whole, you would think that the people that are looking to do a good job with this sort of thing would take the time to do the basic research required to not make mistakes like this. It's just sloppy work. Given, this is something that they're doing for free, but the only people who do things for free are people who are passionate about the work. Sometimes, people will do things for no profit simply for recognition, fame, and attention; they do not apply. Passion is what drives many to accomplish things at their own detriment, but you would be lead to believe that with that passion would come the desire to do one's homework. Bah, now I just sound petty. Moving on.

The other big thing I'd like to address is something that does revolve around the concepts of translation and interpretation. More than once, I've gotten in an argument about the names of two of the main girls in Seto no Hanayome, Sun Seto and Lunar Edomae. Throughout the series, they are shown to be rivals, so you would think that the concept of them being total opposites, like the sun and the moon, would reflect well with their names. Not so, says the anime community. There are people who are convinced beyond any and all notions to the contrary that their names are "San" and "Runa," which are technically the proper romanizations of the names that we hear. However, the names "SUN" and "LUNAR" are not only written in multiple places in the show (alongside their respective symbols), in reference to those characters, but are also found on various OSTs. The counter-argument for this was that "SUN" and "LUNAR" are their stage names, and "San" and "Runa" are their actual names. This really doesn't make any sense, since Sun Seto is not technically an idol singer with a stage name, unlike Lunar. I'm lucky that Max Factory released a figma with Sun's name on it in English, because otherwise, I don't think I would've been able to convince anyone of my point.

The same applies to the whole Horo/Holo debate. In the second season of Spice and Wolf, there's a scene where Holo signs her name on a contract, and her name is "clearly" written, in cursive English letters, as "Holo." (It looks more like Korbo, but honestly, we know better.) Despite this scene and the fact that the Japanese are telling all the American license holders her name is "Holo," people are still giving Yen Press and Funimation a hard time about supposedly "changing her name." It's asinine, and I don't know how that kind of ignorance continues to permeate. I hate using the term "weeaboo," but really, there isn't much else to describe the people who argue these points so desperately for the sake of "keeping the original name intact" or whatever. It's so frustrating, and sometimes, I really wish I could just slap people over the internet and get them to wake up. Not to sound sociopathic or anything.

This is part of the reason that I dislike most anime fans the way I do and why I almost don't like being called an anime fan myself. I hate being grouped in with people who take it so seriously that they will find sheer offense in the English language and will white-knight the hell out of Japanese text to make sure their precious art form is not tainted. Oh well. Live and let die, I guess!

Talk is Cheap

2009-10-13T22:35:00.004-04:00

One thing that genuinely bothers me, something that I tend to have a bad habit of doing myself outside of the typed medium, is episode play-by-play reviews that show up in blogs all over the internet. Now, I have no issues with discussing shows episode by episode as it airs; that's generally what happens on various internet message boards, and I think that it works rather well. However, in the blogosphere, it seems so silly to do it. In my honest opinion, blogs, when not being used as internet diaries, are an outlet for a sort of... amateur journalism. Usually, you'll find things like music and game reviews and opinions on real-life issues, generally of a political nature. It's a way of getting your voice heard about whatever the heck it is you want to talk about. Sure, it's not bound to that, but I feel that it is the most effective and most ideal use of blogs as a tool.

As of late, I've been reading Cirno is a Genius, because the guy who runs it seems to be fairly interesting overall, and in his latest blog post, he mentioned that he is now writing articles for Anime Diet. Now, this seemed pretty cool to me. Some time ago, I was trying to get involved with something called AnimeFood Magazine. I was keeping in touch with one of the people there, and I was genuinely hoping to get in on the action. Unfortunately, things went haywire, and eventually, I almost felt like I was getting the run-around. I've never thought about getting into journalism prior to this, but the thought of being involved with articles and interviews for something of this nature got me excited. I wanted to be a part of that, but alas, it never came to be. (Maybe I'm hoping that this very blog will be noticed by someone high up who likes how I roll. *wink wink nudge nudge*) Anyways, Cirno guy gets involved in Anime Diet, and I feel good for him, so I go and check out what this place is all about. I mean, maybe I can somehow make a contribution or something somewhere down the line. And I find this.

Now, I have nothing against Anime Diet or anyone who works with that site, but places like that and Sankaku Complex (this place infuriates me for a variety of reasons anyway; refer to my rant in Episode 15) are simply a few all over the internet that do the same thing: they "review" every single episode of an anime series as it airs, usually going out of their way to point out anything fanservicey. I don't know what the point of that is, and I understand why people eat it up even less. Generally, comments amount to "lol XD i remember that!" which is more than enough to make my nerves twitch, but I think I've already addressed that somewhere (probably in Episode 15 again). I honestly consider these things travesties to the world of journalism, amateur or not, because these people really don't know what a review is or how to review things. I don't pride myself as a master reviewer along the lines of a man like Roger Ebert, but I do have an understanding of how these things work, and I'm trying to better myself through the podcast in this aspect. We really don't need a play-by-play with screenshots, because most of the time, it's just wacky episode highlights that aren't bringing new people into the show but are only serving as a reminder of the antics that we already know about. Now, there's nothing wrong with discussing first or second impressions with visual aids on the side, but I imagine that people all over the place will still be posting the same "reviews" for Seitokai no Ichizon and/or Sora no Otoshimono eight episodes into the show. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, because "LOL PANTIES!" is not newsworthy, especially not this far into a series. You're not going to bring new people in, and once again, you're simply repeating what we just saw. In my eyes, it's like the guy that repeats a Family Guy joke moments after Stewie Griffin says it on the television.

If you want to give a review for a show, wait until you're actually done watching it, either in its entirety or wherever you feel like stopping. Design it for people who haven't seen the show, or design it in a way that shows valid criticism that creators can take to heart (this is a little less effective as far as anime goes, it seems, but you get my point). Make it an actual review that has planning, thought, and a semblance of professionalism. This is an example of an excellent review and opinion column. This is not. Don't waste our time with drivel like that. Give us a reason to watch the show, and we will see what happens on-screen on our own. You don't need to create a slideshow. We're big boys and girls. We've got 24 minutes to spare.

These words of mine aren't going to start any revolutions, but the great thing about blogs like this is that I have a place to express these views in the hopes that someone will come along and be entertained or informed by them. Maybe they'll agree or disagree and will post comments letting me know that I'm either right or an idiot. Freedom's pretty cool like that. I feel that blogs are made for this kind of thing. Utilize them as tools, not as a depository for multiple screencaps of an anime I either am already watching or don't care about in the slightest. Blog posters who do this are basically aiming for the low-hanging fruit, and sure, they're going to get a crowd of unintelligible YouTubers and Gaia Onliners because easy traffic is easy traffic. However, if you want to get noticed by people who actually matter or, heck, by people with an IQ above that of a CD spindle, make something that's actually worth the time to read, something that people can reference later or send to others.

If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right. If you're not going to do it right, don't waste our time.

Chivalry, Read as Incredible

2009-09-30T01:01:00.003-04:00

I would like to begin by stating that I've given it some thought, and from here on, This Is Not An Anime Podcast! will be 100% Queen's Blade-free, even if something ridiculous and noteworthy happens. Now, this blog area is open game, so if I want to talk about how much hate QB, you can't stop me, but in hindsight, I do feel that since my hot-headed rant about the series, making fun of it now is like shooting fish in a bowl. It's not worth it, and it's not really all that funny. That said, on to the actual post.

Normally, I come to this blog to rant about something; seldom will I use it for praise, simply because that's not as entertaining to me. However, there are instances where things happen that are particularly worthy of unbridled positive words, such as the second season of Spice & Wolf or Max Factory and Good Smile Company's Drossel von Flugel figma, things that are so good that you consider it an injustice to not mention them. This is one of those instances. I've been watching a good bit of anime as of late, trying to catch up on a huge backlog of shows that I'm long overdue in watching, and I came across a show that had been recommended to me in the past, a show I finally got around to checking out for myself. I'm talking about Seto no Hanayome.

Funimation announced that they'd licensed this show back in February (under the title My Bride is a Mermaid), but I haven't heard anything about it since, which is unfortunate, because I want this series to come out faster. Seto is easily one of the funniest, catchiest, and best comedy anime shows to have ever come out. Now, I must admit that I'm not all that well-versed in the world of comedy anime (I haven't even seen shows like Cromartie High School), but I know that my words are not without some sort of substance. In fact, two of the people that recommended this show to me considered it one of the best anime shows to come out in the past five years. That's a pretty bold statement, but truth be told, it's well-deserved praise. I've watched a handful of comedies such as Renkin San-kyuu Magical Pokaan and Galaxy Angel, easily two of my favorites, and Galaxy Angel especially often had me in stitches because of how absurd everything got. I mean, there's an episode where one of the girls dies when she's hit with a volleyball, so the rest of the cast challenges her killers to a volleyball match, which leads to everyone dying, but it's okay, because they're all resurrected by the singing voice of the first girl who died. It's so ridiculous, you can't help laughing. Seto was no different and sometimes took it into the stratosphere. Sun's Sleeping Song, Lunar's sailor uniform-clad, Terminator father, Masa's cool badassery, Shark's... sharkiness, all of these things had me, more than once, rolling on the floor with laughter. Comedy anime generally leaves me smirking and smiling and laughing on the inside, but this show forced it all out of me. The animation choices, such as when Nagasumi basically becomes Ken from Fist of the North Star and when Sun's face gets that "what-is-happen-i-am-confuse-hurrr" look, the music and voice acting (seriously, what a stellar cast), and everything else just made for one of the most refreshing comedy shows I've seen in years. Galaxy Angel is my favorite show of all-time (I mean, one of my namesakes is from it), and I can't not give Seto the praise it deserves: more often than not, this show surpassed Galaxy Angel in more ways than one. I really cannot express and stress how amazing all the characters are and how good everything is together.

If you like comedy, you owe it to yourself to watch this series. When Funimation releases it, just get it. Don't even blink. I cannot recommend Seto no Hanayome enough, and I know that I'm not alone here. Just today, I found myself laughing at mp3s of Sun and Lunar singing their Mermaid Songs. Everything is just so memorable. Seriously, watch this show as soon as you can. You won't regret it, and even after the satisfactory ending and the extra OVAs, you'll find yourself just wanting more. Get to it, people, and see just how amazing marrying a mermaid can be.

After Thoughts

2009-09-10T22:27:00.007-04:00

"Clannad ~After Story~" has hit the prestigious spot of #1 on MyAnimeList.net, making it the greatest anime series of all-time according to that website, beating out such inferior titles as "Legend of the Galactic Heroes", "Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal", "Cowboy Bebop", all forms of "Neon Genesis Evangelion", and any and every Miyazaki film ever made. It's a pretty bold statement to say that the epilogue of a light-hearted romance series based on what is considered by many to not even be the best visual novel Key has to offer is greater in every aspect and is more satisfying than the various classics of the Japanese animation medium that have attained critical acclaim and awards. In fact, some might even find such a claim ridiculous, outlandish, and downright wrong. I am one of those people.

Let me be very clear with this: I have watched neither "Clannad" nor "Clannad ~After Story~". The only Key series I have ever seen is the 2006 version of Kanon, so I can't speak for how good Clannad is as a whole, but I can tell you right now that there is no way in hell that show deserves the #1 spot it has. Now, I've discussed rating systems in the past, so I'll briefly summarize my thoughts on it: people on the internet have no idea how to rate things. From what I've seen, people simply go "Yeah, I really liked that show! Voted 10/10!" and are done with it. I understand that ratings are completely objective and one man's 10 is another man's 5 is another man's 1. However, based simply on what I've seen in comments, reviews, and recommendations, the people on rating sites like MyAnimeList, Anime News Network, and AnimeDB have absolutely no understanding of rating justifications. When Roger Ebert rates a film, he does not simply say "I liked it, thumbs up." He, like any other competent reviewer, addresses the various pros and cons to the film. I don't see that with most anime fans online. Generally, it boils down to "This show was pretty because it was made by KyoAni and the girls were cute and the story was really good and I really like the part where this happened and I love it it's the best show I've ever seen therefore it is the best in the whole wide world voted 11." That is seriously all I see with Clannad fans.

I'm going to go ahead and throw out there that I have a nearly-unjustifiable love for "Toradora!". Honestly, everything about the romance in that show felt amazing to me, and I have a thing for tsunderes (not just anime; I tend to find myself going for girls who meet that criteria in real-life as well). Some scenes late in the show filled me with emotions I hadn't felt since "ef - a tale of memories." The show touched me in a deep way, so I gave it a 10. I acknowledge that the show has some issues: animation quality is sometimes really iffy, a few situations felt unrealistic in a few ways, etc. There are aspects of it that just scream "ANIME". I get that, but I love it anyway. If the over 25,000 people who watched "Clannad ~After Story~" said the same things, then while I could understand the sentiment, I would still say "Absolutely not!" because there's no way that those thousands of people can have the same unreasonable love for a romance show. It doesn't happen.

One of my favorite shows of all-time is "Martian Successor Nadesico". In my opinion, it is the epitome of perfection within its genre. It's one of the shows that got me into anime in the first place. However, if it was at the top of a "greatest anime of all-time" list, I would probably go out of my way to attack that decision. As much as I adore that series, there are a few things wrong with it. I won't go into this in detail, but in short, the cliffhanger ending is a pretty nasty one. The fact that this side of the ocean never got "The Blank of 3 Years" or "Nadesico: The Mission" was pretty alienating, but that's not really the show's fault; after all, the show originally aired in a place that had access to those games. However, it gets hit with the same problem that the .hack series does: you have to play the games to get the full story and experience. While there's something definitely neat about that level of multimedia immersion, it hurts the show's integrity at its foundation by not allowing it to stand entirely on its own. I acknowledge that in spite of it being an amazing show, definitely one of the best of the animated medium, it does not finish the class with a perfect score.

I have not heard such things about "Clannad ~After Story~". I've only ever heard unbridled praise. The original series, where the meat of the Clannad storyline lies, is only ranked #41 on MyAnimeList. That's a significant difference. Am I honestly to believe that the "happily ever after" epilogue is that much greater, not only enough to surpass the original (which sequels almost never do) but also enough to surpass highly acclaimed television shows and serious, big-budget animated classics?

I don't know. My thoughts are feeling a little disjointed, but I can, with confidence, say this: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that "Clannad ~After Story~" would not have the score it has, seriously beating out the likes of "Princess Mononoke", "The Girl Who Leaped Through Time", "Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone", and "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan", if it had not been animated by Kyoto Animation. It ends up falling into the realm of "Queen's Blade" because of that aspect: when people see something they deem as "pretty", they turn absolutely retarded. I've read in discussion that "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" is inferior, because it's an old show and doesn't look as good. Really? With that same fanboy logic, I can say that Final Fantasy VII is inferior, because it doesn't look as good as Final Fantasy X-2. It sounds completely stupid, because it is. There is no justification for it.

One day, I will bring myself to watch "Clannad" and its follow-up series, and I will even do so with an open mind. If I am not blown away by what I see, then I will continue to believe what I have since the first time I started posting on forums: anime fans are the worst, most stupid creatures in existence.

Edit: It was pointed out to me that "Clannad" without "~After Story~" would suck, because "Clannad" is only made worthwhile because of "~After Story~". That certainly says something, but fair enough, I guess!

Eight on the Break

2009-08-29T05:18:00.002-04:00

When the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aired, the internet was ecstatic. With the release of the first fansub of Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, the second season of Haruhi quickly became one of the highest rated anime shows of all-time on rating sites such as MyAnimeList and Anime News Network. The anime community had exploded once again with Haruhi fever. The train had left the station on its triumphant voyage, and everyone cheered, singing Lord Suzumiya's praises on high.

Then, the second episode aired. The Haruhiism train was picking up speed, and everyone on board was still cheering. The excitement was unrivaled, and the energy was still at its peak. The scores all over the board reflected this very accurately, with Haruhi Season 2 still maintain its spot in the Top 10 greatest anime shows ever made. Readers of the novel were interested in how Endless Eight was going to be carried out, and the strictly-anime viewers were just excited that Miss Suzumiya was making crazy things happen again.

Then, the third episode aired. The train's momentum was still strong, and people were hit with genuine surprise that they appeared to be viewing the same episode in a different way. This definitely had its effect, and really, people loved it. The arc is called Endless Eight, after all, and everyone who read the novels knew that this particular story was about a seemingly endless time loop at the end of the characters' summer vacation. It was either going to end here or in one more episode. The novels really didn't touch on this particular story line for very long.

Then, the fourth episode aired, and the horror began to sink in. By the end of the episode, people began to notice that it was the same episode again with little to no additions. Everything looked different, people were standing in different places, and the dialogue wasn't quite the same, but it was still exactly the same. Endless Eight was starting to feel endless, and everyone was getting worried. Suddenly, the Haruhi fever broke, and a new sickness came into play, something of an Endless Eight nausea. Some people had already began to abandon the train at its high speed, but many others were still somewhat hopeful. Internet denizens began sharing their theories about when Endless Eight was going to actually end. Some wondered whether Kyoto Animation was trolling their viewers or if they had a plan that would bring it all together. Everyone decided to put up their guard and play it by ear.

Then, the fifth episode aired, and the backlash began to unfold. Haruhiism followers did not just abandon the train; they took it upon themselves to sabatoge it. There were negative reviews across the board, and Haruhi Season 2's scores on the ranking websites plummeted as people either submitted low scores or changed their "perfection" rating to the complete opposite. Hundreds, if not thousands, dropped the show entirely. Message boards and blogs were flooded with warnings and rants about how terrible Endless Eight was and how KyoAni was shooting themselves in the foot by alienating all of the hardcore Haruhi fans with this nonsense. It wasn't fair, after all. These people had devoted so much to their beloved fandom. How dare they be treated like this?

Let me pause for a moment to address the following: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 1 R1 release was a substantial failure. In spite of all the extra swag provided with the special editions and the fact these special editions were still infinitely cheaper than the Japanese release and even contained an extra R2-style DVD featuring the show in broadcast order with no dub, sales were incredibly low. If there are so many Haruhi fans in the R1 world, fans who were willing to devote so much to their love for the series, why were sales of the series so abysmal? My opinion on the world of anime fans shall be saved for another rant entirely, but you can see where I'm going with this. Moving on.

The sixth and seventh episodes aired, and the stands were nearly empty. Those that remained were either the truly devoted, those who were simply along for the ride, or sleepers. The tension in the air was still quite thick, and everywhere you turned in anime fandom, there were nothing but stacking complaints. Nearly two months had passed, and we were still in Endless Eight, watching Kyon and his friends live the same two weeks over and over again. MyAnimeList recommendations began appearing, saying that if you liked this season of Haruhi, you might like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, because they both have time loops, except Higurashi is less terrible. There is a lot wrong with a recommendation like this, including, but not limited to, the fact that the genres, characters, demographic, and intention are all completely different, but that's neither here nor there. Fans were quickly becoming not-fans, and many just mourned and/or rewatched the first season to get the sour taste out of their mouths.

Then, the eighth and final episodes aired, but the damage had been done. Despite the satisfactory ending, the level of complaints was just too high. Had they been on paper, I imagine the stack would've been the side of the tree that the paper came from. Haruhi was no longer loved in the way she had been before. Nothing was the same. The train now was now laying sideways on the ground next to the tracks, destroyed in every way, lost to the masses. Kyoto Animation had made enemies. They weren't supporting Haruhi anymore, or anything KyoAni did for that matter (unless it's Clannad or something).

Then, the three episodes of the Sighs arc aired, and everyone is kinda happy again. Suddenly, a number of those "voted 1" scores vanished, and the show, while not quite back on top (and it probably never will be), now has a plethora of solid 7-9 scores. The same people who raged at Endless Eight are watching the show again, and they are loving it again. The fickleness of the fandom is mind-boggling and, in a way, infuriating simply because of idiotic moves like this.

Now, the title comes into play. Kyoto Animation did Endless Eight the way they did on purpose, be it as a form of art, as an experiment, as trolling, or as a spit in the face to the fans who will literally buy anything if Aya Hirano's name is on it. I don't know why they did it, but the fact of the matter is that they did it. They created and aired the same eight episodes over and over again with slight differences, and Haruhi fans hated them for it. They felt that as the hardcore Haruhi fans they are, with the amount of support they showed for this series, they were owed something more than this. Guess what, everyone. Kyoto Animation, Kadokawa, and everyone else involved doesn't owe you anything. (Might I remind you of the R1 sales I pointed out up there?) Endless Eight happened, and the best part about it was watching everyone have a meltdown, only to have a good number of those same people crawling back to watch Haruhi make a movie. It's laughable and pathetic, all at the same time. Endless Eight really wasn't that bad. If you're that upset about not having the new Haruhi you want, I'm pretty sure there are light novel translations on the internet you can read. Stop whining about it.

Maybe next time, Haruhiism followers, you guys could take some advice that I think works pretty well in situations like these. Take it to heart, because it's short and pretty easy.

Deal with it.