S'more Expressing the Galaxy

Like many I was really excited to hear that a new company would pick up some slack and start releasing anime, and rather niche anime at that too. S'more Entertainment, a small company established in 2005 whose main goal; at least according to their facebook page, is the "preservation of the sounds and images from your past and a dedication to making those memories easily available." Sounds well and good, their website seems to point out that they have been releasing some rather old school silly live action shows and some music compilations over these past years. They don't seem to be wet behind the ears and have plenty of releases behind their belt; so kudos, this will be interesting, a niche release company going into the anime market. Aaaaaaaaaand then their Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo release came out, and everyone freaked ...

Throne of Games

Check the artist out here

Over the past couple months I have been watching The Game of Thrones with my girlfriend. It is a series that she is a rather big fan of and enjoys a lot. Naturally she's all up to date on the show but she's been re-watching the old episodes with me and I've been having lots of fun. The other week we finally managed to finish the first season of the show. I figured now would be a good time to put in my thoughts on the whole thing.

The show has a pretty good budget and the acting for the most part is pretty well. Some children actors sound a bit silly and some other actors come off flat but the performances are strong over all. I found myself hating Joffrey quite a bit and rooting for Tyrion even through all his treacherous acts. Big kudos have to go to Jack Gleeson and Peter Dinklage for giving those characters such life. To me other noticeable characters of interest where Ned, and his daughter Arya. Unfortunately the end of season one brought a cruel fate to Ned. What has happened to Arya is really interesting though. The character Snow has been one of my favorites as well. He's got somewhat of a hot blooded streak but he's smart enough to know the time and place. He's an interesting character to watch, especially after he's put on duty at the wall.

Each episode during this season succeed in one uping the last by the end of its run time, usually putting in a twist or sudden event that would shock the audience. The overall show was lots of fun, and the character development was handled really well as lots of characters have really grown and come into their own during these 10 episodes. The mythology of white walkers and dragons is really interesting and I'm dying to see what is beyond the wall. The first season ended with quite a cliff hanger that makes me feel like the story is just beginning and that I've only seen the prologue to something even greater. I'm pretty excited to see season two.

Hanging out with the Captain

Space Pirate Captain Harlock has been one of Leiji Matsumoto's most famous and beloved icons from his career. A strong free hero; stoic yet loyal, an enviable man with everything, yet a sad lonely man who has lost his greatest friends. Captain Harlock has survived and stayed in popular culture for more then 30 years. I recently started to watch the OVA series Captain Herlock: Endless Odyssey (Herlock being what the romanization originally was planned to be but never caught on). I bought the first volume for only $4 and decided to just dive in and give it a go. After sitting through the first volume (the first four episodes) I was very impressed with what I saw.

The story is set after the events of the original Harlock anime in a time where space piracy seems to be at its end with a huge government crack down. Harlock has long since disappeared from the world, his crew disbanded, and is just the stuff of legends. The series has a sad and bitter feeling to it, as the world is run down and the government oppression is laid on thick. The days of sailing the stars freely are lost. But out of no where Harlock reappears and flies his flag of freedom again. And just in time as an ancient horror of demons called Noo have been unleashed.

The direction of the series is top notch and its no wonder why with Rintaro working storyboards and direction duty the series ends up with some pretty breath taking moments. The Leiji Matsumoto spirit of men being strong and free independent spirits lives on as well. The sound track is another strong point with a sad Blues Jazz score which farther cements the feeling of how run down and corrupt the world has become. I saw the show dubbed and it wasn't anything special but the dub was actually a lot better then I thought it would be.

In the first volume we watch the rise of Harlock again, the new enemy's plans begin to take shape, an attack on Earth that will surprise everyone, the corruption of the government, reintroduce the character Tadashi Daiba, and watch Harlock break his former crew out of jail. Overall a lot happens but the pace never feels rushed. In fact at times it feels slow, which is a big plus in my book. I've really enjoyed this first volume and I'm looking forward to watching the next 9 episodes.

Inazuma Going!!!

Level-5's bread and butter has been their Sports - RPG hybrid game series Inazuma Eleven for the Nintendo DS; now with the release of the Nintendo 3DS we see a continuation of that series with Inzauma Eleven Go. Naturally since the original Inazuma games had an anime adaption, Go has also received the animation treatment from Oriental Light and Magic.

Now I'll be honest, I never watched the original Inzauma Eleven anime so I came into this show kinda blind. While you can get through this show like that, I think some things were lost on me. Mainly they mention characters from the series before quite a lot. While the story mostly holds up even if you don't know who they are, it's still kinda confusing and well I'm willing to bet less dramatic. I ended up having to google some names and reading the Inzauma wiki while watching the show at least three or four times just because I felt out of the loop.

The show itself has the most zany over the top presentation, where soccer is literally the most powerful force on Earth. A bit like Yu-Gi-Oh, everything seems to revolve around and is resolved by games of soccer. The over the top moves and actions made the show lots of fun but the show is really repetitive. Which is perhaps the greatest flaw of it.

Mamoru-kun to the Rescue!

A bit over a year ago the North Coast of Japan was struck with The Great East Japan Earthquake killing many, and leaving many homeless, jobless, and lost. Even though it has been over a year the effects can still be felt, people still need help. CyberConnect2 has started a program to help those in need; Mamoru Reconstruction Assistance Project. Now what is this Reconstruction Assistance Project you may ask? Well in their own words:

"This is a charity aiming to support people in the 3.11 disaster area. In this project CyberConnect2 sells original illustrations on gumroad, an online e-commerce service, and donates all the profit to Japanese Red Cross Society."

If you are curious, Mamoru-Kun is a character from the Little Tail Bronx world, the same world were the Tail Concerto and SolatoRobo games take place. Mamoru-kun shows up a bit in SolatoRobo (a totally awesome game I will cover soon enough), hailing from the land of Nippon. Now beyond just being a character in a loose series of games he is also a symbol of Fire Safety (among other things) for children in the Fukuoka prefecture. You can read more about Mamoru-kun, this charity, and check out and hopefully buy some nice art at the official site.

Each wallpaper only cost 100¥ and goes to a good cause. There are plenty of cute arts to chose from as well. Any fan of SolatoRobo should be in heaven. I bought one of the wallpapers for my iPod and I really love it, [check below]. Thanks for reading, caring, and if you buy anything, thanks for helping out some people in real need.

Little Battle

Wow, it's been longer then a month since I posted anything! But no worries,  it's not like I stopped doing cool things in the time that I've been away. In fact I've done plenty of blog worthy things! I've just been lazy. Over the next couple of days I'll post more entries in my blog about the things I've been up to lately.

So now with that outta the way let me tell you about Little Battles eXperience. It's a neat little PSP game made by Level-5 that reminds me a lot of Megaman Battle Network and Custom Robo. With a sequel coming out for PSP and the PSV as well as an enhanced port of the original game for the 3DS, it's safe to say that it has become a series. Just like Level-5's Inazuma Eleven series the game has gotten an anime treatment courtesy of Oriental Light and Magic.

The anime has been a bumpy ride for me. The beginning of it had me feeling rather mixed. The show felt too serious for such a simple and silly premise. I came in with a similar mindset that I approached Inazuma Eleven Go and well that was wrong of me. These series are pretty different in contrast. The things that happen are not wild and over the top like in Inazuma but are actually pretty grounded in Earth. Well for the most part, there is some random zany stuff that just feels kinda wrong with the tone. Such as a transfer student arriving to school via Military Jet. Yeeeeeeeeeeah, that was just weird and would be more at home for Inazuma and not for Little Battlers. For me it took about six or seven episodes for this show to actually get good. Over this time through some world building the narrative does start to feel more mature and the tone it takes begins to work in favor. As cutesy as the show is, it actually does have a nice and serious plot.

I'm now twelve episodes in and have found the past couple of episodes to be real enjoyable. I'll write a little bit more about the show when I finish it. For now just know that's what I've been up to the past week, watching Little Battlers! Oh and for those of you interested Dentsu's American branch will be releasing and dubbing the show in English sometime in 2013 for American audiences. There is also a plan to bring out the toy models from Japan too. No word on the games themselves but I actually have high hopes that we'll see them over here in the states soon enough.

Short and Sandy

I just recently finished watching the latest Leiji Matsumoto show Ozma and I realized a couple of things while watching it. First I have to say that for what its worth the show was pretty fun even if it was obvious that the end product really lacked originality; feeling like some odd mishmash of Matsumoto's previous works but lacking any of the emotional depth. And why did it lack the depth, well that is simple the show was rather short and that hurt it. Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against the short and sweet approach, and have seen some rather good short stories but the scope of which Ozma plays out and length which it was given; six episode, will undoubtedly be the key defining aspect of this series.

Before I continue blabbing on let me tell you a bit about the show itself. If you don't know Ozma was a supposed "lost story" of acclaimed Manga-ka Leiji Matsumoto that was just recently "discovered" and put into production to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Wowwow TV station. There really is no doubt that the budget of the show was pretty big with this being both an anniversary project and a new Matsumoto series. The CGI used in the show for the ships looked really great, you can tell a lot of time and effort went into rendering them. A short anniversary project with a good budget is pretty much what Ozma turned out to be.

Hum Bee

The other day at my girlfriend's behest I downloaded the Humble Indie Bundle V. I'm not big on computer gaming but I don't skip out on it entirely, if something interest me I try to play it. That said computer games are complicated for me. It's obvious I'm mostly a console gamer, even installing a game can lead to headaches for all involved when I'm around. Then there's the problem of whether or not I can even run the games I want which always freaks me out. The thought of having to trick out a computer scares me actually. So yeah I don't touch too many games. But having just gotten a new computer, the fact that these games aren't exactly powerhouses, and well it's for charity lead me to take the plunge. And hey since I'm not very up to date on this whole computer gaming thing I didn't have any of these games yet so everything in the bundle is new to me.

Included in this pay whatever you like package were four direct downloads for the games Limbo, Sword and Sworcery, Amnesia, and Psychonauts. If you paid the average you would also get Bastion, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Lone Survivor, the steam codes for all the games, and the soundtracks for the first five games. Now for the longest time my girlfriend has been showing me Let's Plays of Amnesia, and telling me about how scary it is and how I should play it. Of course the ironic twist here is that she is naturally a big scaredy cat so that means she has never played it for herself.  So of course after I downloaded the games I gave her the steam codes so she could enjoy the fun too. Now we can both play Amnesia and be terrified. Remember kids, the couple that scares together stays together. Or was it runs away in fear together? Well whatever same thing really.

 

Right now I'm playing through Limbo and it's a real pretty game with such a nice dark atmosphere to it. So I'm having a lot of fun but the game feels pretty short I'll probably beat it before the weekend is over, if I can focus on it that is. I always seem to get distracted. I find the puzzles to be all very good and nothing too hard or unreasonable, with nice platforming involved as well. The biggest saving grace is probably that you are respawned right away with no real punishment after all your deaths. The game is very trail and error so death is something you'll see a lot. Overall it's a great puzzle platformer and reminds me a bit of A Boy and his Blob on the Wii. That's another great puzzle platformer, far more bright and happy looking but still got great atmosphere and gameplay.

I'll start playing the other games in the weeks to come, I plan to get to Bastion soon which is the game I probably wanted the most. I have to say the soundtrack of the game is real awesome and the bit I have put into it feels great. So yeah my girlfriend and I have some games to play now and we gave money to charity. What could be better then that? The simple answer nothing. Well actually maybe not nothing, I think this is still better:

Galaxy Expressing

Well today I got my Galaxy Express 999 movies from Eastern Star which is a line of a Company called Disotek. These guys are a pretty nifty bunch as they have recently acquired a lot of awesome old school animes like Casshan, Captian Harlock, and Saint Seiya. I'll end up writing about some of these releases once I get my hands on them. But back to the topic at hand, today I finally got these two films.

I've been on a Leiji Matasumoto fix as of late and I'm not even sure why. I always was aware of him and his work but was never really interested in any of it until recently. Now I've been checking out all kinds of his stuff, from the new and very short Ozma to the old and really cool Star Blazers, which I've been having a blast with just watching on youtube. I have to say though out of all of it I think the Galaxy Express stuff has drawn my eyes the most. Perhaps it's because of the difference in focus. Yeah that could be part of it. With Galaxy Express what really draws my eyes are not the fights but more of the potential for morals being taught. It seems like a series with a focus in journeying and not so much destinations. Or at least this is what I can say after reading the back of the box.

Well at any rate I plan to watch these movies soon and see if what I think about them is even remotely true. My girlfriend has taken a shine to all this Leijiverse stuff and even wants to watch these movies with me. I'm a lucky man, aren't I? After I finally see these bad boys I'll write up a little something about how I feel and if it was worth it; oh yeah I'll also write about if I was right about the potential it has. Okay well until then, take care.