How many of you can name any American television shows?

I’m laying this out as I go.

I don’t watch non-Japanese animation because 90% of the time they are crude, ugly, dumb, and disturbing (I should probably try Avatar: The Last Airbender as I did see a few episodes, and they were a great step up from what I expected, don’t get me started on Nickolodeon) so I won’t talk about it.

An unfortunately reality in the storytelling world is that authors sometimes do not have full control over how they present things. The editors for graphic novels and regular novels have influence over how the story will progress. While I am no expert, I think it’s safe to say that some of these “influences” are not in favor of what the author planned. But of course it is likely different for each case. This applies to every country, not just America and the U.K. And to myself I consider it a real issue that money and popularity need to be involved when deciding on how someone’s work has to turn out. I’m not some anarchist who says that authority needs to be taken out.

In sort, I think that American TV plays too much toward
1. Teenagers who like stupidity.
2. Trying to get viewers to stick around for the next episode.

Let’s analyze the only three actual live action television shows that I watch. House, Lie to Me, and Law and Order (yes I love detective stuff).

House: Is described as a “medical-based-whodunnit”. Like every single medical drama airing, it focuses on the relationships of the doctors involved, sometimes more-so than the actual profession of working in a hospital. I like House cause it is almost entirely based on dismantling the persona of titular character and figuring out what his philosophies are.

I hate House because it took three seasons to get anywhere, and that hasn’t been much. Seasons 4 and 5 set up pretense that House was trying to get in a relationship with the Hospital’s manager Cuddy. The second to last episode of the 5th season had them together only have the finale ruin it with the revelation that it was all a hallucination. In season 6th Cuddy (offscreen mind you) gets into a relationship with another person (a side character from last season) and you think this is a big issue until she (offscreen again) breaks up with him and shares a kiss with House in the season finale.

I consider this bad writing. There is nothing for the viewers to catch on to or really discuss. Ultimately it seems that everything moves at a snail’s pace just to get the viewers to come around to the next episode with guise that the show is a medical drama. Viewers who like the romance are thus pressured to watch to the next episode so that may hope that the next episode resolves anything (which it won’t)

Lie to Me is a detective-type show that stars Cal Lightman, who solves crimes with his team by analyzing peoples’ faces, voices, and body language. The show has relationship elements, but they are thrown to the side for actual crimes and issues brought up in the series. I like Lie to Me because some of it’s meaningful episodes focus on how difficult it is to trust someone because of how much deceit there is in the world. The cases get interesting because they revolve around finding the truth and sometimes manage to work in an antagonist for the week.

I hate Lie to Me because most of its episodes have presentation similar to how a 5th grader writes a story: “AND THEN THE GOOD GUYS FOUND THE FINGERPRINTS AND THEY CAUGHT THE VILLAIN IN THE WARHOUSE”. There is no build-up, no villain characterization, nothing that makes us feel satisfied after the case is resolved. It’s an interesting parallel to the problems that Twenty-Four has: lots of build up and villain characterization, but nothing to make the conflict resolved.

Law and Order is best described as a “cop-show.” I love Law and Order, and I’m referring to most of the damn franchise (the original show, SVU, and Criminal Intent). If there’s anything to dislike about Law and Order it’s perhaps the writing in the more recent episodes, but otherwise I just love everything about it. Since the show has no ongoing story the show is able to fit a story (that could easily be expanded into a large movie or a whole series) into a nice 45-50 minute episode. We follow the police as they follow leads on the case, gather suspects, interrogate people, and eventually prosecute the offenders.

Regardless of whether or not the episode has a good ending. The show feels intense and manages to work in contemporary political issues. In short, every episode of Law and Order feels “complete.”

Certainly the lack of no ongoing story gives Law and Order an advantage over the previous shows. But are they really that different? I mean look at this scene from the final episode of the original series:

Jack yells at an insensitive lawyer

Perhaps I don’t watch a lot of television. But to me, that whats what any TV series should strive to be.
And I’ll be fair. Not many anime even have that much intensity.

The image above was drawn by me. But Trollface is the original property of Whynne

Couldn’t come up with anything snarky.

If you have been living under a rock for the past couple years, the Rebuild of Evangelion movie compilation is a remake of the 1997 anime series Neon Genisis Evangelion. If you don’t know about Neon Genisis Evangelion, go look up the rest on wikipedia because I’m not going to spend time educating you from the 4th grade.

I actually watched the original Evangelion series when I was 11 or 12. I had originally read about it before hand because the setting new to me, and was greatly disturbed by how the series ended (movie ending, and original TV ending) but was strangely interested in the sexuality involved. I read abit of the manga (which still hasn’t ended to this day) I watched it dubbed, and was greatly confused by the TV ending. Watched the movie (End of Evangelion) and stopped halfway because it was getting too weird for me to handle and I already had heard about the macabre ending to that.

Of course my interest in the series did not entirely die. I think for a period of time I was angry at how the series progressed because it relied on the viewers input too much. But I think I was more annoyed at the lack of a solid ending.

Enter 2006-2007 when the Rebuild was announced as a four movie retelling of the series. I was not very excited because I felt that “retelling” could mean alot of things. But I was intrigued because the Rebuild promised a new ending to the series. This of course, is what I still want, as it gives hope of a new solid ending.

So I kept up with the dates somewhat. I watched part of the DVD release in 2008 but never managed to finish it. Finally I finished it this week (only 2 years late right?).

Review begins here

So there are two ways I can review this.
1. Comparing it to the original series
2. Review it standalone

So I’ll do a little of both.

Review REALLY begins here

Ok so……….Lets examine some problems I had with the original series and how well they are addressed in this first movie

1. Sense of other people

Evangelion takes place in Tokyo 3. The original series never showed anything that gave hint of another human being in the city. Of course, this can be seen as symbolic of loneliness (if you don’t feel lonely after watching the series you are a monster), but it irritated me because the main character is piloting a fucking robot to stop mass destruction and mass death (or so we are led).

The movie addresses this by showing a few things. They have more cars in the city, one of the bomb shelters is shown full of people, there is more sense of civilization overall.

2. Shinji being upset

Not much needs to be said here. Rebuild’s Shinji is very much toned down from the original. I was worried that I would have to go through 9 minutes of “I MUSN’T RUN AWAY”, but it looks like smart direction changed that.

Back in 2008, Kurogane noted that Shinji seemed less “illogically emo” more like a “boy thrown in to a bad situation.” Which serves the point further, Shinji is much better in rebuild.

3. Angels ARE NOT robots

Ok so only 3 Angels are shown in this movie. Let me analyze anyway.

The angels are much more fluid than in the TV series which is good because they are not supposed to be robotic in anyway. In the TV series you could probably dub over lines about the Angels being enemy machinations sent from Russia/China/ and so on and now one would know (people wouldn’t care about the blood, it’s red fuel).

Sachiel still has that creepy skull thing going on for her (it’s a she, look it up), so thats fine.

Shamshel actually manages to be SCARY. Expaning more on it’s shellfish-esque design it features a mollusk vagina dentata which fits oddly well in the Evangelion mythos. The original fight between Shinji and Shamshel was….underwhelming to say the least, I couldn’t help but feel that Shinji was overreacting to a silly looking creature.

Ramiel actually has a very cool design change from the original, mostly compromised of transforming dimensional shapes. Instead of deploying a drill from below his floating body, he turns the lower part of his body into a drill.

This may seem really insignificant. But I enjoyed these changes alot because they add to the mystery of what the Angels are. As opposed to having them be another type of robotic thing.

4. NERV, what the fuck do you do?

Ok, a real problem with the TV series was that it was always emphasized that NERV was “safeguarding the world.” I didn’t buy it cause all it looked like was a bunch of scientists and interns operating equipment.

There are a couple scenes in which Misato and Ritsuko are riding in military vehicles. This does three things that I like.
1. It implies that the two have authority over the military.
2. It makes Eva alittle bit like part of a military drama.
3. From the preceding two points, it makes Nerv’s role more believable as a specialized organization.

Presentation

Ultimately since the movie is well…..a movie, the small glimpses of the characters (major and minor) allows you to refresh your opinion of how well they are developed. I can’t say much on this aspect because I should wait until all the movies are released, but it’s definitely worth looking into. Rei is mysterious (as always), and since they chose to end the movie where episode 6 ended we get a good impression of her.

Review ends here

With all these changes, I’m confident Rebuild of Evangelion will make it on my “favorite anime movies” list (opposed to general favorite anime list). Even though I’m not a huge fan of Evangelion I do acknowledge that it is a very unique and stunning anime (even if the original series was mixed in my view).

Thanks Rebuild. This is how restructuring should be done.

couldn't resist some photoshop

Don’t worry. I have nothing but good things to say about this man.

For those who don’t know. Zero Punctuation is a weekly videogame review series by a guy who calls himself Yatzhee. His style of reviewing is notable for a few things. Such as: fast-talking, long analogies/metaphors/similes, funny pictures, and negativity.

I’m not here to talk about how good/bad/crazy Zero Punctuation is. Rather I’m going to rant about how I feel about Yahtzee’s style of reviewing.

I actually have not been too familiar with how the community generally reacts to his reviews. So excuse me if I do some research as a write this.

What Yahtzee does

Whilst many think Yahtzee just simply criticizes a game until his review bleeds out the good parts, I think of it differently. Yahtzee uses his criticism of the game as a base to find what is good about it….Admittedly thats sort of the same thing, but that does not change it from being a legitimate style.

In a conversation with my friend about this interpretation, I did kind of feel it was possible that I was giving him perhaps too much credit. But then again, people have interpreted some Bugs Bunnies cartoons as analogies for cruel and angry gods, so I’m not going to dwell on that idea too much.

I’ve found that Yahtzee does a good job of pointing out how newer game compares to recent ones. In his Jericho review, he points out that all levels have a shade of brown which compares to how the Quake game series looked. I found this kind of funny and amusing, but then I showed the same video to my older brother (who was quite an avid gamer around the time of Quake) and that was actually the part he laughed hardest at.

My favorite bits

Perhaps the part that I enjoy the most out of his reviews is how he points out the flaws that many games of this generation have (though I still have goddamn idea how he missed and other reviewers missed the unskippable cutscenes in Assassin’s Creed). He consistently points out the the tediousness of repetitive gameplay.

His elongated analogies are perhaps what I consider the most distinctive of his reviews. Other than just overstating his feelings they provide colorful and insane imagery to what would normally be a bland review.

One bit that he has only touched upon now and then is his opinion of Japanese culture. He has stated that doesn’t exactly hate anime, but considers it “mindless twaddle.” He has mentioned visual novels atleast twice, I can only wonder if he will review one in the future to mess with the mainstream gamers.

Internet reactions and my feelings

I did say that I was not too familiar with the impressions many had gotten from his reviews, though this is partly untrue. I have only seen the ultra-negative impressions.

As much as Tv Tropes (and it’s community) is what I consider the holy grail of story information and opinion sharing, I am very shocked (and somewhat disappointed) at the amount of complaints level at Yahtzee (seen here) for dissing a game they liked. Furthermore some of those people are complaining about the level of crude humor in his reviews, I happen to hate crude humor with a passion but I’ll have to say to them is “Welcome to the internet you blind buffoons”.

The problems with Zero Punctuation and people are:
1. People take his reviews too seriously
2. People don’t take his reviews seriously enough

Massive paraphrasing and exaggeration below
Now this is just my opinion. But when Yahtzee makes a long winded rant about how JRPGs are oddly designed or how FPSs are trying too much to be like Halo, it does not give anyone the right to just post his argument and claim victory. People who think his word is the law are just latching onto something and trying to be in the “right”.

On the other end, even if he bashes a game he is not calling it all bad. He is pointing out flaws that had issue with and would like to see corrected in games that he plays. I recall seeing someone post a comment for his MGS4 review: “For once, I disagree with Yahtzee. This game is amazing”, which I feel kind of cheapens the idea of his reviewing it to just “he doesn’t like it”.

The thing is. Whether or not I like the game he reviews or see something off in what he says, most of the time I agree with what he says or understand what he dislikes. My favorite game of this year, Mass Effect 2, was reviewed by him. I felt he perhaps was a little harsh on the idea of the characters looking lifeless, but other than that I agreed with nearly everything else.

Maybe I’m just full of hatred (blame Highschool), which allows me to get into the mood of his review. But I rather enjoy the idea of accepting an agree views of a game and putting aside any sense of sympathy for the videogame industry (whilst respecting the fact that developers work hard). I would like to see him review some games that I really like (Odin Sphere), have him analyze it, and then have the honor of laughing at his complaints.

Conclusion

Too long, didn’t read? Yahtzee is a cool guy who makes me laugh. Leaving aside your personal feelings, you will like him, or not care. He is of particular notability to me, as I have moved quite far from the mainstream videogame industry due to my fascination with anime/manga and other Japanese things.

Keep going Yahtzee, you’ve already cemented yourself as a legend.

Yes, I know this is the french cover.

Rather than this being something I like, I consider it legitimately amazing.

Mamoru Oshii is best known for directing Ghost in the Shell (released in 1995); four years later Jin-Roh was released, part of the “Kerberos Saga”, which was his own creation (dating back to 1987).

What is the Kerberos Saga?

The Kerberos Saga has one of the most complicated plots I’ve read about. Jin-Roh (which I finished last week) is the only actual part of the saga I’ve seen.

The general story of the saga goes as such. Japan loses a very different version of World War II (they lose to Germany). After Japan recovers it is met with internal conflict and terrorism that threatens to destabilize the nation. To combat this, the nation’s police force is restructured to separate the Self-Police (regular police) from a Capital Metropolitan Police Division which holds control over the “Special Unit” (aka Kerberos Unit).

The Kerberos Unit becomes well-known for using awesome skill, heavy technology, and brutally efficient tactics to combat terrorism. For reasons never fully explained, they become disliked by the Self-Police and are put under pressure by the government that created them. As such, the Kerberos Saga focuses on the turmoil of the Unit as it becomes increasingly hard for them to survive.

The Opening of Jin-Roh

Jin-Roh sets the mood instantly by showing us that there is no real “good” in the conflict. The Self-Police not once use brutal tactics against a riot (full of napalm filled molotov cocktails) and are instead blown half to smithereens by a satchel charge.

The Kerberos Unit, without permission from the Self-Police authority, run into the sewer and confronts the terrorists. There are maybe eight terrorist, and at least fifteen Kerberos.

Here we see the how the unit inflicts fear on the terrorists, the red eyes and gas-mask show no humanity. These are “good” guys, though they are brutal, they are just as brutal as the terrorists they fight.The Unit gives one warning. There is a long pause right before one terrorist panics and the Unit then responds by opening fire with their MG42s and killing everything.

As a young female terrorist tries to escape, she is met with one Kerberos who orders her to stop. She refuses and begins to pull the bomb on her satchel charge. The Kerberos, despite shouts from his nearby comrades, refuses to shoot her, and instead asks “Why….?” The bomb goes off, yet the Unit is unharmed.

The remainder of the film focuses on the aftermath of this incident, which is used to try and bury the Unit for “incompetence.” Our protagonist becomes the Kerberos from above, Fuse Kazuki, I’m tempted to say more, but since it’s such a great film I recommend you see it yourself.

Themes

The core theme of Jin-Roh is the question of humanity, Fuse is emotionless for most of the film, and when asked why he joined the Unit, he replies with “I just felt comfortable there.” His existence as a “wolf” remains resolute, though throughout the film he has many opportunities to just leave the military/police and become “human” once again.

What is… and yet isn’t touched upon much, is the nature of how the terrorists are treated in terms of humanity. There is clear implication that they aren’t treated as human. The warning that the Unit gives the terrorists in the opening is thrown into question when it was revealed the soldiers were given orders to eliminate the terrorists, showing that perhaps they knew the terrorists wouldn’t surrender.

I really love how the film does not take sides, of course we are intended to root for the Kerberos (I do at least), but since it is never made clear what the terrorists are fighting for, we can not judge the righteousness of their cause.

Concluding Thoughts

The atmosphere of this film is thoroughly depressing and dark, but if you can bear that, it serves as an excellent introduction to the Kerberos Saga. I’ve been trying to find anime that can be considered more artistic, and I am happy to add this to my collection.

Love this anime or hate it. You have to admit it’s has a presentation that many anime do not. The original light novel is by Nisio Isin, also the creator of Bakemonogatari. The similarity is apparent from the use of wordplay, crazy characters, self-referencial humor, and lots of conversation. I’m not gonna post a summary, cause that’s easy to find anywhere.

Katanagatari uses a plot that many would describe as “shounen-esque”, as it has a “We have to collect all A of the B” type story (A is number, B is a special artifact). In this case, the main characters must collect all 12 of Shikizaki Kiki’s deviant blades.

However, this shounen feeling is kind of overshadowed by the philosophies introduced in each chapter as well as the general seriousness of the story that is reflected by the violence of post-Sengoku era Japan.

Presentation

A lot of people have a problem with the amount of talking in the series. Whilst I understand that, I rather like the talking because it separates the it from other action anime. When the fighting does happen, it is well animated.

The story features a narrator to comment on some aspects of the story, though this generally does break the flow in any way.

Characters

The relationship between Togame and Shichika is probably the most intriguing part of the story in terms of character dynamics.

Togame is surprisingly open with her feelings most of the time, but other times she hides them when factoring logic into her strategies (best seen in episode five). Shichika is dense, but not dense to people’s feelings which is a funny twist on his character type.

The fact that they are working together despite knowledge of their ancestry (Shichika’s father killed Togame’s father) demonstrates a attractive bond, or perhaps rather intentional ignorance on their part. Either way it shows that they don’t care about the past when confronting their enemies and continue to move forward.

Other than Shichika and Togame who make the main cast. Each chapter features a character wielding one of the twelve blades as well as the Maniwa Corps. Almost none of these characters are portrayed as 100% villainous.

Episode 1 has Maniwa Koumori who is arguably the most “evil” character shown, but he does nothing evil enough to be hated. He rather just serves as an introductory antagonist.

Episode 2′s Ginkaku is shown as reasonably angry for the lack of support that the Shogunate shows to his land.

The Maniwa Ninja here (Shirasagi) is killed off so fast that we don’t get to know anything about him except that he talks backwards.

Episode 3′s Meisai is the first good natured blade-wielder, as she is using her blades to help heal orphaned girls. Her death is most chilling, because it shows us that while Shichika can be good natured, he feels almost nothing when killing Meisai.

The Maniwa Ninja here (Kuizame) is once again killed off fast, but remains likeable because of his shark teeth and willingness to enjoy the nickname that Shichika has given the Maniwani. Though earlier he is shown killing indiscriminate people without hesitation.

Episode 4 does not show us the battle with the blade wielder, but everything we know about Sabi Hakuhei shows that he would be a reasonably badass stoic protagonist (SPINOFF NOVEL PLEASE)

The three Maniwa (Kamakiri, Chouchou, and Mitsubachi) are more sympathetic than Nanami who slaughters them like…..bugs (they’re named after bugs after all).

Episode 5′s Kanara is likeable and has a tragic background. Hell, I was praying for him to survive this episode (which he does). His novel illustration is above.

No Maniwa are killed here. But we are introduced to their de facto leader Houou who manages to be most polite, funny, and morbidly obsessed with agreements.

Episode 6 has Konayuki who is just plain adorable and ends up being saved by Shichika after killing perhaps the only remaining unlikeable Maniwani. Houou is still morbidly obsessed with agreements and kills off another Maniwani in order to settle an agreement (much to Togame’s horror)

Music

The music is funny. Part of it can be quite anachronistic, featuring slow beat rap style songs. This is actually rather fitting with the style of the series which features similar anachronisms such as cigaretts or puns that wouldn’t make sense in the feudal time period. Other times the music shifts between being simply dramatic or actually fitting the time period.

My favorite track is Bahasa Palus which is composed of chanting and rap, though I think I prefer thetrailer version of the song. You can find samples here.

Concluding thoughts

Despite being skeptical about Nisio Isin because I had only heard of his Death Note and xxxHOLiC novels (both are series I feel are lacking). The anime of Bakemonogatari and Katanagatari have increased my desire to read his works (though to date I have read exactly none so far).

I will see Katanagatari through to the end. I have been given a few spoilers, but the presentation will likely still surprise me.

P.S.

I graduated from Highschool today. Woot.

THIS GAME IS GOOD.

It’s been a while since I’ve consistently played a visual novel. These are my first impressions.

Story

Ikusa Megami Verita (or “Battle Goddess Verita”) is the fourth game in the Ikusa Megam series and is a prequel, but is also a sequel to the Genrin no Kishougun series.

As such the game follows two characters.

First is Celica, the God-Killer (Kamigoroshi) who was originally a human male, but came to possess the body of a goddess (long story). As such, he looks quite feminine. He is possession of sword containing the mind of his comrade, Haishera (an earth demon). He is accompanied by Ekuria, whome he has taken as his cohort. Ekuria is the former Princess General of Karsha, deposed by the actions of the other protagonist….

Louie. The half-human king of Menfil (his mother was human, his father was a godly being I think, I’m alittle confused on this bit). Having exiled Ekuria after beating Karsha in the Lesperent Kingdom (god these names are great) in Genrin no Kishougun 2, he is depressed. His wife Irina is now dead, killed by Ekuria (who was under influence of a curse at the time)

Both come into conflict with the emergence of a new threat known as Bureado and a new sect of demons.

Gameplay

Whilst simple, the gameplay does somehow manage to make me not dread random battles as I usually might.

The combat is an interesting mix rectangular based areas of Disgaea and the relative turn based gameplay of any RPG. Instead of just casting the same spell over again, you are able to to power-up your spells to one of 5 levels at the cost of MP (for magic) or TP (for power attacks).

In helping out beginners, the game offers a nice gradual difficulty curve. There are lots of refill points, and you can easily return to any visited area if you want to grind more levels. The AUTO system is still present and allows you to let the computer take the best course of action for you, or if you are too lazy to sit through level grinding.

Both Celica and Louie play using the same system. Cept I found that Celica’s side is more magic based, whilst Louie’s is more power attack based.

As some new added features. Sidequests are now accessed through a separate station, which is good as in the previous game (Ikusa Megami ZERO) it was more a matter of stumbling upon them.

Art

The game is in widescreen format, which is always a plus. The art is beautiful as always, maintaining a sense of moe and seriousness.The backgrounds of the game are surprisingly detailed. This really does look like a 21st century eroge.

Sound and Music

As with all Eushully games, only the female characters are voiced, but thats fine , cause they are all so damn beautiful.

The music of the game is astounding. I was not expecting too much, though the last game in the series had some relatively awesome tracks. The battle music, for general battles and boss fights, has much been improved.

Note: it may take a while. But let me upload some tracks over the next few days

Overall

It’s a relief that this game has turned out quite awesome. My understanding of the story is limited, but regardless I am able to play through it with ease. Completing this one is going to leave me empty.

Sorry for making this review short. Gotta keep playing.

Continuing from last week.

I will now explain elements create a perfect show for me.

0. Basics
Have good animation, music, etc. Otherwise correct your mistakes on the DVD

1. Good Pacing
This might not seem important to many, but I feel that a good show needs good pacing. After each episodes airs, I want to be able to say “hey something cool happened this week.” Shows by studio BONES (Eureka 7, Darker than Black, Xam’d) lack this element, thus they drive me crazy. However BONES has a significant fanbase, so apparently this is not a big deal for everyone. A better example would probably be Nanoha StrikerS, which managed to annoy everyone with episodes that consistently were focused on training.

And yet......ANN can't get it right either.

Took her three episodes to confess her love. For others it takes three whole seasons.

3. Don’t end your show like Evangelion
And here’s where the Gainax fans will be like “NO, BUT LOVE EVA.” I read a book called Anime Classics Zettai that argued that Evangelion’s confusing ending should not detract from the fact that many of the other episodes were well made and had good direction.
That may be true, but I think in another perspective. If you watched a whole series only for it to end with a mindscrew ending, you’re left thinking “what was the point then”. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to watch 12 or 24 episodes and have an ending that is either sad/depressing/awesome as long as it gives a a nice finishing touch.

4. Don’t try too hard
This is more subjective than any of the above. But shows should definitely not go over top with following:
-Popular culture references
This isn’t always bad, Hayate no Gotoku does it all the time. But when you have Lucky Star feature the Hare Hare Yukai dance, you’ve gone from “clever” to “fanservice”
-Famous philosophers and locales
Ergo Proxy had an entire array of robots named after philosophers, and an entire episode based around an obscure Japanese book store.
-Symbolism
I dare you to watch Melody of Oblivion without getting bored.
-Whatever the hell Ghost in the Shell SAC was talking about

Me fighting off heaven to prove a point (note: I am not actually that feminine)

Cause this has been bugging me.
PLEASE COMMENT

Between 2007 and 2010 we have been given some of the best anime I’ve seen in recent years. I started watching anime alot in 2006, and was entertained, but did not find anything that I could consider “truly spectacular”.

In many of my posts, I’ve talked about how I’m quite elitist in comparison to my local anime community. I consider anime an art, I consider manga an art, I don’t consider memetic mutation an art but I do find it incredibly fun.

Near the end of last year, I set to prove to my film teacher that anime could be a serious medium. She of course had previously been exposed to the usual moe and ultra-cutesy stuff that is the stereotype of anime (along with Dragonball Z).

I showed her Denpa Teki na Kanojo (calling it Electro Magnetic Girlfriend, for the sake of convenience). She loved it, noting the noir elements, the meaningful violence, and the music. I felt proud.

(Disclaimer: I don’t have anything against moe. I love it just as the next guy.)

The top anime (that you can take seriously and act mature about) of recent years according to myself are

-Bakemonogatari
-ef ~a tale of memories~
-Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
-Durarara
-Baccano
-Texhnolyze
-the xxxHOLiC movie

Of funny interest. 3 of these shows are by SHAFT, 2 are by Brain’s Base, and 2 are by Madhouse (wierd coincidence I will say)

But likely, there will always at least a couple individuals that can say “I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion, the shows you consider artistic are in fact pretentious, insignificant, and overly stylistic”
…..Albeit in a much more direct and severe method.

I would say that Bakemonogatari would be the most controversial choice on the list. People most definitely call it pretentious and bash it cause of SHAFT’s style. Some people would call it “moeshit” or “haremshit” even.

(Disclaimer: I don’t have anything against moe. I love it just as the next guy. I will continue this rant next week.)

I review what most gamers would call an “actual game”

Bioware was a hit or miss studio for me. I liked Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) but felt it lacked alot of depth, I didn’t care for Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate was a bit too complicated for me, and Jade Empire was essentially KOTOR in mythical China.

Then comes Mass Effect.

The first Mass Effect was (and likely still is) one of my favorite Xbox 360 games of all time. I was not waiting in anticipation for it, but my friend loaned it to me, and the rest is history.

So of course I was to be excited for Mass Effect 2, which was to continue all the decisions made by the player in the previous game and be more dark and edgier than it’s predecessor.

Yet I did not browse Bioware’s site 24-7, that it was reserved for looking up visual novels.

But it did come out, I pre-ordered it. Finally got around to repairing my Xbox 360 (yes I play it on console, my computer isn’t godly like manga’s), and a week or two later I finally get my Xbox back and finish the game in 3 days.

Gameplay:

Almost everything has been changed from the first game. No longer is there an inventory (thank god, I hated that thing), gameplay has been made simpler. The RPG elements have been toned down, and action elements have been ramped up.

Now there is a worry of ammunition, forcing you to rely on multiple weapons, which are given variety (unlike the previous game in which you essentially had the same pistol, rifle, sniper, and shotgun which you turned in for more powerful versions).

Graphics:

The first game’s graphics were already good enough. Everything was solid. However, there was quite a bit noticeable glitchy effects, referred to as “texture popping”.

Gone is the texture popping, and along with it comes just greater graphics. I don’t think there’s to much to say on this end.

Story and Characters:

The greatest asset of the first game was the feeling that you were “playing” through a movie. The dialogue transitions were wonderful, the main quest’s cut scenes featured some great cinematic camera work, and the characters had character.

The cinematic ideal has been turned up to eleven. Every quest features cut scenes on par with the main quest. It’s hard to describe this, but you just need look at any youtube video that features the Loyalty Missions and you can see what I mean.

Dialogue options are still pretty much the same (you get the: nice response, the neutral response, and the tough-guy response), but there are additional “Interruption events” in which you can apply something cinematic to the situation rather than just saying “I want to fight” or “I don’t want to fight”.

One gripe with the first game I had was that though the characters were believable, only a few of them were interesting. Primarily, the alien characters……and the fact that you could not romance them.

I was one of many Bioware fans who screamed across the internet “WHY CAN’T WE ROMANCE TALIIIIII” (admittedly I was more quiet than the others though)

And apparently Bioware listened to our pleas, and to my greatest joy, Tali is romance-able. And it’s not just a couple sections of dialogue that show off character development, there is actually an element of emotion put into these scenes (or at least I felt). The Loyalty Missions are a great part of the game. Every one of your party members has one of these missions, giving an equal amount of depth to the older characters and the newer characters.

Overall

Mass Effect 2 has revived my hope in the Western Video Game market. That is no exaggeration. I feel that many video game developers are taking the approach of “gameplay-over-story”. I’m not a fanatical person who claims that game’s need good story to be good games, but I have become very dissatisfied with lack of attention that is given to stories.

The finale to the sci-fi epic Halo series left me with annoyance in that there was hardly any story left at all while the first two games had relatively intriguing storylines. Nintendo’s game series (with perhaps the exception of Metroid) have almost no story (ok no one plays Mario for the story, but Zelda could atleast have a nice story built around the characters).

And most often we are left with perpetually gruffy-angry-annoyed-sarcastic characters who you wish you could punch through your screen.

GO BIOWARE!!!!!!

What do you like more….The concept? Or something that exists because of the concept?

One barrier people have to get past is art. That is, they dislike the art of a certain media and will not look into the media because of that reason.

This is the case for me in relations to western comics, and western animation. I have gotten much more used to Japanese anime style art. I hardly watch Western cartoons because I do not find the art appealing, though I am trying to break through this barrier of considering the animation style: “stupid art”.

Of course sometimes the barrier is more specific. For instance, many people will not look at the work of Nobuyuki Fukumoto because it is very different from the usual shounen, bishoujo, style.

Ultimately, there are two problem with labeling art as “good” or “bad”.
1. People have their own opinions.
2. Certain art is designed for different things.

To use Fukumoto’s art style as an example, it does not try to be “moe” or “appealing”. Fukumoto’s art is designed for the serious stories he makes, often filled with gambling and psychology.

On the doujin scene, many (American) newcomers are critical of “unrefined” art style of Umineko and the original Touhou games.

In the case of Umineko, there are those who saw the Umineko anime first and thus the visual novel art clashes with them. Whilst of course they fail to understand that Umineko began as a sound novel, the art is not the main focus.

But moving away from that excuse, I personally do not think the art by Ryukishi07 is “bad”, the coloring is not like more commercial games, but compared to the art from the Higurashi doujin games, his art is has improved and has good proportions. The art is good enough to give us an impression of what the characters look like, the expressions show us what the characters are feeling.

For Touhou. One blogger (can’t remember which one) said that Zun is a “great concept artist”, and this is absolutely correct. Zun’s art gives the defining features of the characters. It may not be the greatest art, but it gets the point across. We know that Reisen is a girl with rabbit ears, wears a suit, a skirt, and has a moon badge on her chest, that’s the concept.

So I would like to hope that people who don’t know this philosophy that I’m preaching, will learn about it from this post. And for those who already have it in their heads, just understand that you are not alone.