Ride On Bushiroad, Ride On

I grew up during both the Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh boom when I was younger and got into both the anime and card games for those franchises. As I got older my interest in Pokémon mostly faded and I really only cared for the videogames but I found myself still in love with the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. My middle school days were spent dueling lots of friends. I eventually grew past that card game as well though and even gave away all my Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

But even though I stopped playing I still always had a soft spot in my heart for those card games. To me seeing that the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon card games are still alive always makes me smile a little. I remember how people thought they would be a fad and fade out and yet kids still play the games, watching my young relatives get real into Pokémon has been a blast. Looking back on those times has been fun and I even found my interest in Yu-Gi-Oh growing again near the time I finished high school. But lately the card game series I really have taken a shining to has nothing to do with my childhood and is a brand new game.

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.