Felix's Anime Gaming Tech Ramblings

Sorry, we are closed!

2012-01-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Some days I feel the urge to just shut this blog down completely. Then I think, "I'll probably regret it down the road," thus limbo ensues. I'm not sure if it's a justification mechanism for time well spent or human nature to hoard things but I'll just leave this blog as is until the day Google decides to abandon Blogger.

Why the change of pace? Although I blog considerably less than in years past, I do still very much enjoy blogging as a cathartic activity. However, the internet landscape has changed drastically since and having some "free floating" blog on the net is rather counter productive. With social media in full effect, most large sites now have social components that better serve those needs. In other words, why not leverage sites that already cater to a similar demographic? Or, in the case of Twitter, leverage a certain method of social media?

There's a reason why status updates are quite popular on Facebook. The occasional long-winded post may be good from time to time (or if you have something particularly deep to discuss), but for 95% of situations, it's better to have smaller and more frequent posts. Not only does it better keep your audience engaged but, more importantly, yourself engaged. So in the coming days I will be finding a new home for my ranting and raving. Likewise, I foresee leveraging other social medium in the near-future for separate endeavor I've decided to pursue. I'll try to update this post then, cheers!

Sonikkuuu!!!

2012-01-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

Strangely enough, I've had this niggling interest in Sonic games. This is because up until now, most modern Sonic games that I can recall, have been duds (outside possibly some GBA titles). So whereas I'm less excited to play the next Mario game, I'm more inclined to try Sonic in hopes that SEGA will finally do the game justice.

To put this in perspective, the only two Sonic games I've spent time considerable time with (read: owned/completed) are Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. While I did dabble with the original and the first Game Gear title, my time was limited since we were a SNES household. That said, what better time than to try Sonic Generations when it is currently 50% on Steam (it works with Motioninjoy BTW).

I'm really digging it--they stripped out all the crap from the Adventure games and kept that which mattered: the Sonic levels (TBH I did enjoy the shoot'em up levels back then). Coupled with some re-created more classic side scrolling levels and you have something that's much more focused than ever before. Add to this a very sparkly sheen of graphical goodness and you have something of a gaming adrenaline fix.

Sonic is, more or less, a game about momentum. Rarely does a missed jump lead to death but rather a detour or halt in speed. It's a more encouraging experience as you can still progress while making mental notes where improvements can be made the next time through. Timing your jumps perfectly is the key to getting on the short path and preserving that incredible sense of speed. To this end, I'm much more of a sucker for the modern Sonic levels, there's just much more insane loops and crazier scenarios to blaze through (like running on water). Ah sooo addicting...

Notes: One, the subtitles are mediocre at best when matched with the Japanese voices. Two, the compression on the pre-rendered movies is poor and audio a tad loud. The rest is handled via the game engine (which begs the question, why not use it for everything?). Three, final boss battle is a total joke and I honestly have no clue what gameplay is going on at all. Four, the credit roll is very entertaining as it shows each level from their respective games.

Eh?

2012-01-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

I heard some murmurs of one Roger Ebert and his opinions about games as art. Not knowing the contents of such articles, nor do I particularly care, I propose my simple answer.

The next time you're running through any 3D town in some fictional game, ask yourself this: why are those barrels/boxes/bushes/insert some object here there? It's because the person who put them there thought their vision of the world would look better with them there. It's not some formula that three barrels in that exact corner = win, but the result of trial and error and subjective evaluation. It's not because he or she thought players would stop to admire them crates, but because the world would "feel empty" if they did not exist. That is all.

Just had to say it

2012-01-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

A little old, but here are the early numbers for XIII-2. These first week numbers show a marked drop-off compared to other entries in the series. I dunno, maybe because two of the three leads are fugly (*cough* Serah *cough* moogle)? Luckily as long the awesome battle engine from XIII exists, I'm still good to go.

Diablo 3 quick notes

2011-12-08T18:42:00.001-08:00

So I got a beta invite for this round of testing (be sure to opt-in on your bnet account). It's been rather hard to login so my time has been fairly limited. I was able to run through the length of the beta (the same as it was prior), which ends at the Skeleton King.

Generally, I have mixed feelings primarily stemming from the fact that the core gameplay (combat) has not evolved much during all these years. Granted a barbarian is not exactly a finesse character, but I still expected a little more strategy/synergy with his skillset.

The standout of the show, and seemingly often as of late (BF3) however, is the sound. It packs a very nice wallop to match the bits and chunks that go flying about when you unleash your carnage. Also surprising is the lack of a full 3D world. The game is at times a mesh of 2D and 3D. It's not as clear cut as older games where clearly BG elements are 2D, but it does manage a convincing blend of the two. I would argue a side effect of this is sometimes things look a bit soft, as if the texture artists tried to compensate too much for the painted elements.

More later once I run through a few more classes.

Megaupdate

2011-12-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

Hmm... feels like ages since I've blogged. I suppose it matters little as not much has changed. The weather has finally taken a turn for the better (read: getting chilly) so what better than to hunker down with the staples of my pastime.

On the anime front, we have newcomers Mashiroiro Symphony, Fate Zero, Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, and Chihayafuru. I'm pleased to have picked of Chihayafuru late (out of boredom during raids), since it's another one of the those strive to be what you want feel-good kind of titles. Speaking of which, Bakuman season two is also running as well.

The standout title has to be Fate Zero--outstanding production values, imaginative battles, and a surprisingly fair amount of time devoted to character development. I'm particularly glad it doesn't seem to shy away from gore when necessary to add impact. HitMoN is also proficient at carnage and mayhem yet errs on goofy thanks to its mix of quirky characters, mish-mash story, and tendency for boobie groping. Mashiroiro Symphony your dime a dozen, slice of life harem-ish anime. Nothing extraordinary but attractive character designs and typical archetypes.

Then there's the gaming side. FFXIV is still a given, but I took up Battlefield 3 and some Minecraft too. TBH I didn't think the $26 asking price for Minecraft was really worth it--almost insulting but having now spent a good number of hours, I'm convinced. This quote from the Eurogamer review sums up much of my enjoyment with the game:

No matter how crude, hapless and infantile your creations, they're yours.

There really is something charming about the game--be it exploring and creating your network of mineshafts, trying to navigate the open seas or gathering and preparing food. My biggest qualm is that the game world does not wrap. This means no matter how far you go in any direction, you will never come full circle. That's a bit of a shame really, since the worlds are already ginormous, I would've preferred the illusion of a whole world. Then there are the monster spawns, which add much excitement to the game (especially when you're deep underground), yet border on cheap when they pop up right next to you. The audio also could use a little work. Positioning is iffy at best and I can only imagine how nice it would sound with proper environmental effects given that you spend much time in caves and shafts.

Originally I hadn't planned on Battlefield 3 but my FPS itch grew enough that I picked it up a few days after launch. Like many, I was surprised just how well Frostbite 2 performs. Clearly proper FXAA > MLAA since it can be correctly applied in the pipeline before 2D elements like the HUD. It still suffers from texture blur but the performance is just too good to pass up. Back to the game though: the biggest appeal remains unchanged since BF2--sense of scale and plenty of "oh shit did that just happen" moments that I just don't get from other FPS. Stuff like assaulting under the cover of vehicles (especially copters) just give a wow factor that's unmatched.

I also picked up a new piece of hardware: a Dell U2010 to go along with my old Samsung 245T. Yay, finally a multi-monitor setup for home. For a week or so I spent trying to get both to match but ultimately the 245T has this red tendency that's hard to get rid of. Despite its age, the 245T actually has slightly better viewing angles. The best part about the the U2010 (apart from the more neutral color reproduction) is lack of RTC errors (ghosting, halos) that frequently cropped up on the 245T during gaming. A minor thing is the U2010 does require some warm-up time (~20 min) before things reach normal brightness and color.

That's about it for now, although I just picked up KOF XIII (so so) and a new mouse (Razer Death Adder Black Edition). Maybe more on that later...

Randoms

2011-08-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I've had time to really post much. To my dismay, the SSD slowdown did manage to return much quicker than expected which raised a red flag that defragging was purely coincidental fix last time. After some more tests, it turned out that the problem was actually how I was booting up my computer. Namely, too fast. My computer and peripherals is connected two a surge protector that also has a power switch (which I also turn off at day's end). Turning on the the surge protector immediately followed by the computer (<2 sec) was causing things to malfunction a bit.

The other thing lately that had began cropping up was random reboots during FFXIV sessions. The randomness was anywhere from only a few minutes to something like 4 hours+. After testing every known part, it boiled down to cooling--the stock i5 HSF just wasn't cutting it. While running stock clocks regained stability, it did lead me to investigate my temps a bit. With a new-found fondness for the IntelBurnTest, I found that even stock clocks were bordering on a whopping 100 C temperature (thanks in part to Intel's turbo function hah) in which the CPU would begin throttling itself. So I went and got a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (plus the Arctic Silver 5 I normally use) and the temps dropped all the way down to mid 60s even under IBT. Now happily overclocked, it still doesn't exceed 78 under IBT--nice!

Himawari reborn

2011-07-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

Blood C wooo...

Mid-Year Recap

2011-06-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

Oi... been a while eh? Let's get right down to it. E3--a little less exciting than I was expecting. Wii U: somewhat underwhelming as I think the idea could've been accomplished with DSx as a kind of controller. Tomb Raider reboot looks nice, XIII-2 is more or less the same (a good thing) and Battlefield 3 is still the FPS to get.

Things are actually a little more dynamic on the anime front with a good variety of shows as of late. This season we get the well-produced, albeit melodramatic Hanasaku Iroha, the quirky Stein's Gate, the machismo-fueled Beelzebub, and perhaps the greatest of all--The World Only God Knows season two +_+v. Then there were two series I passed over but went back to watch, both insanely funny--Milky Holmes and Panty and Stocky with Garterbelt.

Still plugging away at FFXIV... but where was Guild Wars 2 at E3?

SSD defrag

2011-05-07T02:01:00.000-07:00

While the strengths of SSDs dictate that fragmentation does not impact (at least significantly) performance and warrant defragmentation, I recently hit a threshold where it did. This came as a rather surprising fact given the inherent nature of SSDs and that I generally have a good 30GB chunk of my 80GB G2 X25-M free at any given time. Anyhow after a recent round of application patches I saw a significant dip in FFXIV performance, somewhere from 60 FPS in empty areas to <30. Apart from going through the usual suspects (heat/throttle given lack of recent driver updates), the biggest hint came from the Inventory menu, where the sudden load of item images would drop the game to a crawl. Combined with the fact that general I/O even on my std HDD created additional performance that otherwise did not happen previously. Short of the story, rather than spend the time to do a fresh wipe/install, I opted to take the cycle penalty and defragged the SSD and viola, problem gone!

Bit.Trip Beat

2011-03-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Wow, I don't think I've been so frustrated by a game since the NES era (how fitting!). The reason is the game's so hard it's not even a motor control issue. I can't even process all the patterns let alone try to move the paddle to where it needs to be.

Spring Anime '11

2011-01-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

Quick recap of last season: Bakuman ended up being the top show, oreimo hit some rough water but managed second, MM! had its moments and yosuga fell to a swift axe.

This season has a few interesting things--Freezing gets a nod for some obvious things but its semi Battle Athletes setup has me more intrigued than not. On a similar note, Infinite Stratos also has a similar setup, but I just don't see it going any where. Yumekui Merry is a little muddy, I can't really pin anything I really like about it, yet it doesn't have any real flaws (it does have a pretty cool villain). Gosick may by worth watching just to see Victorique's reactions but I don't see it gaining traction either. Rio is about as absurd as its concept but the real super surprise comes from Beezelbub, which I found myself laughing about 75% of the time. Notable mention goes to Kimi ni Todoke season two for the best OP song so far (not to mention it should be a pretty good show too).

Tron: Legacy thoughts

2010-12-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

For something that's two-tone for the majority of its run-time, I found myself inexplicable glued to the screen. Generally I was in this train of thought, "this set looks a bit barren [in terms of props] but it looks so good minimalistic." Sadly, the editing could've taken a clue from the set design. It's such a shame really, I wholly believe the movie had all the elements for a light-on-story holiday romp, it just needed some fat trimmed off.

Basically we get a product that starts with a bang (even the real world scenes), falters slightly in the middle, then sputters up and down to the somewhat anti-climatic end. Again, it's not a issue of lopping off whole chunks--most of them served some plot purpose, but watching the movie and going, "kay, these areas here, here and here are a bit too slow." I guess I'm coming down on it because I was expecting a flat-out beautiful train wreck yet got something that could've exceeded my expectations had it been fine tuned just a bit.

Then there's the whole Jeff Bridges digital re-aging thing. Couldn't put my figure on it but there was just something "paste-illy" off about the whole thing. I guess I was scrutinizing his every facial movement (which I imagine had to have been reference shot first), but somehow it always felt lacking in expressive elasticity.

Fight choreography was a little lacking as well (the best being the Tron flashback sequence) and frankly just a bit god-darn slow at times (we don't need to see slo-mo running). Again, kind of a waste since you can justify anything in a digital world: discs (nice), bikes (yes!), sticks (wasted) and planes (just for 3D?).

I do like the thumping bit-crushed sounds and music but please leave the orchestral out; it stuck out way too much like a sore thumb. Hmm, gonna have to wait and see on a blu-ray sale before picking this one up.

FFXIV: Making Strides

2010-12-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two weeks since the first of two large updates came about (the latter scheduled for December). Let's get right to what it meant for me:

- The UI lag is gone. Sure, I could nitpick it for not being invisible, but in my eyes, it is effectively gone.

- The UI has been generally streamlined for the better; however, that is not always the case. IE item repair info. placement makes less sense than before. Short of the story, you need to be in a certain class to repair something. What good does putting the what you need to repair with info. only after you've successfully picked the right class?

- Servers, while rock-stable before (at least for me), are more responsive (also a side effect of the UI). I have to caution that assuming your connection is not to blame, your network settings play a big deal in this. Ultimately, people popping up in chunks is the luck of the draw. My guess is FF14 only displays XX amount of characters at any given time. When one disappears from range another is allowed to show. Problem is, people tend to be clumped in masses (around the aether, repairman) so when you move away, it usually results in the sudden pop-up of "new" players.

- Skill points are fairly easy to earn via grind (though frankly I didn't have enough time with the old system), but leves are still the way to go. Whatever leveling problems shields had are gone as I've been leveling that strictly by having one equipped.

- Maps get zooming functionality (amongst other things) and party members now show up provided you're on the same map.

- Sound got broken for whatever reason. It was suggested that reverb is what is borked, where certain sounds now have this buzz to them.

- Graphic performance remains relatively even (a little less aggressive AF on their side), although I've upgraded my machine to a Core i5 so I can't accurately judge.

Final Fantasy XIV Impressions

2010-10-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

With RO winding down, this was the only other MMO I had really in mind. With the average reviews hovering around the 5 mark, I certainly had some concerns going in and most of them were realized once I actually started playing. Overall, my feeling is that of wasted potential as there's actually a fun game to be somewhere.

The Good
Graphics--everything from characters, monsters, equipment to scenery. Given the quality of the models, I'm equally impressed by the amount of customization options, though certainly some looks are more popular than others. Likewise, its hard to appreciate the facial differences when I spend most of my time zoomed out. The equipment, while not full of bright colors, is very cohesive. You can mix bits and parts and everything still looks as a set (one of my biggest pet peeves with Guild Wars armor). The monsters are downright adorable and have some very fine animations. You might be at first hesitant to kill some of them, but after the many rodent types give you a beat-down, you'll soon think otherwise. Lastly the scenery strikes a good blend of texture detail and pixel shading goodness. In fact, that can be said of the graphics in general, very finely detailed but not overly extravagant.

The next thing is class switching. By now you know, weapon = class. Coupled with easy stat resetting (a bit every 30 minutes or so) and you can literally try anything you want. Mix and match skills from classes, check. I've yet explored this too much, but ATM I'm using a "standard" lancer with skills from a marauder and pugilist.

Crafting is something I also find enjoyable. While at the core each mini-game is most likely identical, the fact that they spent time on every animation adds a whole lot. In fact I really don't see the problem with the 36 hour / 16 leves (8 regional / 8 local) limit. That's just solo, and frankly more than I can handle. Perhaps I could do more, but right now I find it enough while I try to manage my inventory, build up all my skills and just enjoy messing around (and the spiffy weather effects).

The Bad
Server performance is atrocious. Most of the time in cities you'll encounter empty streets because players do not appear in busy areas until you stop. In particular bad cases, NPCs also suffer the same fate. On the overworld I'm appalled by the performance given just how small monster mobs are. Put it this way, things like a leveling spot in a cave can be a little as three monsters at any given time. It's almost inexplicable why it's THAT f-ing bad.

Well actually my guess it the game hits the servers for every last thing. This brings us to the much criticized UI and yes, it's flat out a disaster. While things like item sorting are due to be added in late November (kudos for being fast, even though I should be there from the start. You have it in your offline games...). UI Performance feels completely non-local. That means I effectively think EVERY SINGLE CLICK from opening up your menu IS CALLING THE SERVER. Take the map for example, why do town locations have to load in? They don't move for Christ sakes, yet if the server is really bad, sometimes the map won't even load at all (or you'll get like a few tiles). Imagine what happens when MMOs are built on menus and stuff... yeah it's gonna suck. I cannot stress how sluggish this makes the game feel. Add to the fact that it sometimes adds extra useless menus:

Why do I need to select the amount if I only have one?
Why are there two identical items in the loot list (and WTF do items go to loot list when I have space) when they can be stacked?
Why can't I check durability in the equipment menu?
Why doesn't the repairman tell me the durability of the item before he repairs?
Why do I need to make a bazillion macros (that in itself is a sign to developers that your game is not friendly)? Short answer, cause you don't want to deal with the UI lag.
Why does the target button always target you first?

Note I don't even have experience dealing with retainers/people selling stuff. The list could go on forever but safe to say, this is a gigantic oversight. Frankly, heads should've rolled at SE for not taking beta feedback or even testing the game themselves. More on the lag though, this translates directly into performance. Using a real-time ATB is pointless when things don't really happen on screen. Sometimes complete animations are omitted because god knows why. Since skills can be triggered when you have enough stamina (what they call the ATB), in theory you can chain stuff. The more likely scenario is you find skills not triggering properly because of the on-screen disconnect and skills getting queued up. This is laughable at best and you'll wonder if the networking code was built was built in the 90's.

As far as client side graphics performance. It seems to me that the game makes little use of LoD. As far as I can tell, if a character is on screen, it gets full detail, texture and all (not sure about fur as it's kinda hard to tell). This means you're going to get massive performance hits in town so yeah. I started on a 4850 and I've upgraded to a 6870 (which is between 5870 and 5850 in performance) and things are good for the most part. Frankly, I'm a little CPU locked ATM with my 2.8 Core2 Quad. With the 4850 I was running about 1280x800 windowed, 1680x1050 4xAA with the 6870. Full screen 1920x1200 4xAA is acceptable in my opinion.

Then there's the lack of documentation, which sabotages a lot of the crafting fun. Without any fan sites, I'm almost tempted to say SE was trying to sell books or something. The game is nigh-unplayable without databases.

Farewell iRO

2010-10-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

While I was hoping this would've taken a little longer (till the release of Guild Wars 2), it is clear that iRO (international Ragnarok Online) is clearly run by money-grubbing incompetents. The recent implementation of Renewal only served to show what little effort management is doing aside from bleeding the players. So I get to leave RO again and hopefully it'll be dead next time around.

Let's start with Yggdrasil, the new server launched in conjunction with the Renewal update. Seriously? Keep in mind that iRO had a complete three P2P server merge just a few months earlier so it boggles the mind why they would want to splinter the population again. Let's see, on average Yggdrasil has prolly between 75-100 players, ROFL. Ymir (the merged Chaos/Loki/Iris) is around 1k on prime hours. It's only a matter of time till Ygg dies and Gravity merges them in suckering all those thinking they could get a fresh start. I suppose it's nothing new, Gravity totally ignored everyone who said it was a bad idea to open another server with no population to support it. Given iRO's horrible server performance, makes you wonder if these are real physical servers, or multiple virtualized ones running on one machine.

If you want to know how a company can thrive on such a pathetic population count, look no further than iRO's idea of events. These can be summed in one of the following:

1. Monster kill counts that require players to purchase in-game items for EXP benefits ($5 per hat at the lowest exchange).

2. Gift box events where players can purchase (wooo, don't I feel lucky!) boxes ($3 per box) that give random in-game item. These rank from good to garbage, and everything in-between usually becomes garbage once the market is flooded.

3. The same recycled yearly events.

So basically, Gravity makes a killing on these so called events where you basically throw more money at them. The sad part is iRO is either full of super gullible people or people with plenty of disposable income. That or people who like to engage in credit card fraud (which they had issues in the past).

Then there's the issue of support, which is basically an online ticket system. Yes, iRO is a MMO with no in-game support. The GMs are practically invisible and do not patrol the game whatsoever. Even during their most important WoE events (bi-weekly GvG), often the GMs were unable to do anything because no one was in the office when the server went down. In fact, it's almost laughable that rarely does a weekly maintenance go by where all the issues are properly implemented resulting in emergency maintenance following shortly thereafter.

Then there's the amount of botters and cheaters. It isn't hard to find exploits since iRO has a tendency for bug regression or mis-implementing the same kind of bug found prior. This wouldn't be a problem except management has a hard time actually banning these people. This latest race to Lv150 saw the GMs stand idly by as cheaters used previously patched bugs that regressed with the renewal update to exploit their way to the top. For example, some later implemented items became unknown because their data was missing. Simple testing like this is overlooked which makes you wonder just how many bugs crept back in. Of course, long term players of iRO know Gravity US has no software engineers to speak of.

I won't even go into how the game is actually being run from a community level. Suffice to say, clearly it has no problems as management believes a new coat of paint on their website is the solution to their problems. Yeah right...

6800 - Morphological AA

2010-10-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

If you're a video card person, you know the Radeon 6800 family (mid-performance, under this new naming scheme) officially launch yesterday. From the dozens of reviews available, it looks like quite the card for the price (certainly a consideration in my next upgrade). One feature that practically most reviews didn't cover (due to late drivers) in detail was morphological AA. Tom's was the only one with a few screens, hardly comprehensive, but that what all the other sites' follow-up articles will be for.

Looking are those screenshots it becomes clear where the caveat's for MLAA will be:

1. blurring - similar to AMD's other shader-based AA techniques, narrow/wide tent, though not to the same degree it seems.
2. blob-ification (yes I just made that up) - similar to how post-processing filters work when up-scaling video. Sharp edges become wobbly and non-sharp, hence an overall blobby feel to the image. Granted I suspect it will not be as severe.

Kudos to AMD though, as long it's an option I can tick on/off, it never hurts to have more choices. I just hope developers don't think its some magic panacea and think it comes without PQ cost.

Anime... wooo

2010-10-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've yapped some about anime. Rather than do the whole blah blah list--which frankly is so short these days, I'll just touch upon the ones I plan on watching ATM (pending quick and swift disaster).

Ore no imouto ga konnani kawaii wake ga nai (I will never type that out again, and I actually C/Ped that) hits mostly all the right chords. For all its accuracy in how otaku are perceived and represented, I can't help but feel perplexed that at its very core, its still a paradox of sorts. That paradox is basically the Kirino compromise. Being a model (of course this is like non-supermodel) & otaku are just a combination I will never believe until I see it with my own eyes. I suppose they have to sell the anime somehow, but it does dampen the effect a little.

Bakumen is another good depiction/projection of those striving to deal with the day to day realities of entering society. Sure, most people don't end up remotely near the manga industry but the setup was quite good. If nothing, its something worth rooting for.

MM! is just fun for all its ridiculousness. That and I never thought I'd be so captivated by a moe character like Mio, especially when she gives that glare.

Yosuga no sora is just harem madness walking on thin ice. Can't say much other than it's a guilty pleasure.

Lastly, I've been playing some two PSP games, K-On!! and Project Diva 2nd. Both are music games and while K-On!! has the more interesting mechanics and music to gameplay representation, Hatsune Miku just can't be beat when it comes to the songs. I do wish both games had some way to dim the background dancing/playing, they just get too distracting.

Renewal IN, Ragnarok OUT

2010-09-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Renewal testing on iRO began last week; can't say I'm impressed at all. Unlike some trolls who keep griping about XX mechanic being changed (since its debut on kRO) and what not, that's not my concern. If you can't adapt to updates/balances then that's your problem. Maybe you should pick up a different hobby?

That said, the alarming news for Renewal is the translation--or lack there of. It looks as if Gravity farmed it out to the lowest bidder who in turn ran it through Google translation and passed it back. It's that bad, probably 80% pure Engrish through and through. What's even worse is it seems to have been done wholesale, IE content that is currently translated went through the spin cycle too and came out worse for wear (see item descriptions). Of course Gravity USA is pretty much a shit company and wants people to actually report and suggest corrections. No asshats, just go through the whole thing and try again.

One interesting thing is the new client shows player counts. Ymir (the only P2P server) on most hours of the day has anywhere from 600-900 players. Makes you wonder how much money they milk from their current player base to keep afloat eh?

DVD constraints...

2010-07-28T02:25:00.000-07:00

Played a little bit of Starcraft 2. While I bought the digital download, my guess is the download (6.8 GB) is the same as what can be found in the boxed version. There's actually quite a bit of FMV going on in SC2, from little tutorial videos, skill upgrade demos, to TV bits and it sadly all looks fairly poor, most likely just to cram it into a DVD. What as shame as the game is actually pretty darn sweet.

PS3 & Final Fantasy XIII review

2010-04-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

I bought a HDTV--had the computer hooked up to it for a bit but couldn't stand using the mouse outside a proper desk. Needed another Blu-Ray player so the PS3 was the only logical choice. So far I have GoW collection, FF13, and WipEout HD. When I finish GoW2 (finished 1 already), I will get GoW3 but that's as far as my must-play/interested in PS3 titles go. Kinda scarce but Blu-Ray was my main concern, nothing else.

Onto FF13, I enjoyed it very thoroughly (54 hours to finish, working on side stuff now). Again proper expectations help and having read plenty of reviews prior, my two takeaways were:

- linearity
- hands-off battle system

Ironically those two things were the ultimately what I was looking most forward to, the former in some regards. Let's get the easy stuff out of the way.

GRAPHICS
Looks fantastic (we really need next-gen consoles for 1080p everything) even at 720p and the 1080p CGs are downright impressive (note: the CG is downright fugly and poorly compressed on 360 and even the in-game runs 576p... o_O). Battles are where it's at and the higher-end spells looks downright devastating. My personal favorite is Ruinaga with it's slight post-explosion rainbow effect followed by the water spells. Eidolons (summons) are kinda cool but honestly, I rarely use them in battle ever.

Characters are all impressive with the few odd ones being Serah and Lightning. The former is just downright creepy and the latter sometimes so. CG is more along the lines of Advent Children though sometimes all the fluid jumpy stuff looks strangely unrealistic even within the context of people with unnatural abilities.

From a top-level, environments are detailed and varied but looking within each individual zone creeps occasionally of bland almost randomly-generated-esque dungeons. This is most likely a side effect of the linear dungeon-on-rails but nonetheless, that is the end result. Monsters are fairly varied with some old and new, each with multiple variations based off the same base model. It's a solid looking package altogether.

SOUND
Generous use of 5.1 audio, I like it a lot. High-level impression would be the use key themes with multiple variations/takes. I really enjoyed how they fuse much more "vocals" into the songs with most themes having a take with vocals. The voice work is generally fantastic though Vanille is too chirpy at times. Lightning generally works her role well though some awkward writing is to blame. Hope kinda has a hiss or something (dunno the proper term) but everyone else is pretty spot on. Oh, I love the Chocobo theme song in Nautilus.

STORY
I like the setup a lot, especially the unknown focus to the general relationship between Fal'Cie and L'Cie. I also find it nearly impossible for people to be confused about it at all (it's one of the most straightforward FF games). Even if you are confused, a quick glance at the Datalog would explain things. Speaking of which, sometimes the Datalog reveals things just a hair faster than it should. Characters are also more grounded in reality this time. Rather than being banded together seemingly inexplicably, each one has their own way of coping with things and at some point, go their own paths as well. My only complaint is that the villains are horribly undeveloped. Most of them get one or two scenes outside the main boss, but even he doesn't make good use of them other than spitting the same stuff over and over. The ending is somewhat... disappointing to say the least...

GAMEPLAY
Each one of your characters can be assigned a role (commando/fighter, ravager/caster, sentinel/tank, medic/healer, saboteur/debuff, and synergist/buff). A combination of roles equals a paradigm (IE COM/RAV/MED = Diversity, the name they give that paradigm). In battle you can switch between paradigms that you have set prior (6 max) on the fly. This is crucial because monsters are generally immune to certain things (say debuffing) or have higher/lower resistances to others. Each active role also bestows a perk to the ENTIRE party. IE a SEN reduces damage dealt hence it makes since to switch into a paradigm with a SEN before getting hit by a devastating attack. The last thing is staggering--a weakened state monsters enter when you hit them enough till their stagger meter fills (they call this act of filling the bar Chaining). The stagger meter gradually goes down by itself so it forces you to apply constant pressure. COM chain less but cause the meter to reduce slowly. RAV on the other hand chain faster but the meter reduces at a faster rate. Generally you want at least one COM unless you think you can get something into stagger very quickly with say 3 RAV. Forcing things into stagger is important because that's when you can generally deal the most damage or any at all.

As far as playing each of these roles within a paradigm, you can do so manually but things go so fast you best let the AI handle it (outside critical functions or certain strategies like what I call Ruinaga juggling, heh). It handles like any prior FF with a ATB. Just imagine the ATB is segmented and much longer allowing for you to queue up multiple actions (each taking a certain amount of ATB). Conversely if you want to execute one action quickly you can force it to occur once the ATB has enough to perform said action. Otherwise the all the actions you have queued will happen once the ATB is fully charged. Again, it's best to let auto handle most cases unless you have time-sensitive commands. Now how the AI (who always controls your other two members) determines what to use within any given role is always a best-case usage depending on how much is known about the enemy. When you encounter a new monster you have never fought before, its data is blank (R1 brings this up or you can check in the Datalog outside battle), and generally the AI will try everything until it notices a weakness/immunity/etc. About after 1-2 battles with the same monster and the AI should have what it needs to do well or you can get the data immediately using the Libra skill (good for one-off boss battles). This is important because the AI can also control buffing so it will not use per element defensive/offensive boosting skills unless it knows this data.

At the end of the day, the battle system is far from hands-off. In fact, it is more akin to Supreme Commander where you are less micro-managing (but you can as well) and more or less guiding your party from a high-level. It's a fantastic implementation and coupled with the brisk pace of battles, extremely fun.

Some point by point thingies:

- I like "refreshing" after battle (you get all your HP back) because I'm the gamer that usually makes things harder for myself by conserving items (and never end up using them), this helps with not having to heal or anything.

- You have no MP. As long you're in a particular role, you can keep casting away.

- Actively playing a MED or SYN role sucks because you cannot target an enemy, hence cannot see their status effects (say if you have a SAB/debuffer in your paradigm). Maybe I'm missing some kind of display toggle?

- Each character, while given access to all the roles farther along in the game, are only really proficient in their 3 main original roles. This is actually a good thing as it keeps the characters slightly unique. However, the "secondary" roles are more than useful provided you have the patience to level them later.

- Yes, the game is on-rails till chapter 11 of 13. That means no go where you want/do what you want until then. Completing the game will create a save that allows you to access the final boss battle, but also return to the free-roaming area where all the side quest/crazy high-end battles are.

- I love how characters will just talk when you near them, beats talking to useless townsfolk all the time.

- Equipment dependency is strictly bonus (always a plus in my book). I made it through without upgrading a single accessory and only upgrading one weapon to max (level one, not even transmuted). Didn't even touch any other weapon from the rest. Likewise, weapons choice is not a question of A > B, but rather which perk you would prefer (magic > physical, balanced, faster ATB, faster chaining, longer buffs, etc.).

- Yes, I did not cover eidolons/TP for they are generally optional outside of Libra and maybe Dispelga.

- Everyone gains CP points (used to level your characters) after a battle. Yes, even dead people and people not in your party (thank god for no more FF10 character swapping).

- There is no death penalty other than impeding your progress through the game.

A final word on difficulty. The main game is just right provided you understand the mechanics. Unless you are heavily overpowering your foes, you cannot stay within one paradigm the entire fight. There are also crucial fights where your default set paradigm is key to survival. Likewise it's kind of annoying when they drop you into a battle post-cutscene (*cough* eidolon *cough*) with a different party that has no properly set paradigms (oddly enough you can set this if you skip the cutscene). If you kill everything on the map through the main game, you should have just enough "levels" to make it to the end (basically you will need HP to survive certain KO spells) without doing any of the side stuff.

At the end, FF13 is highly enjoyable game, that in many respects is truly streamlined. The linearity is debatable since prior FFs just did a better job masking it (plus my guess is a third-person close camera really causes people to feel constrained). The battles are fun and challenging even before you get the all roles and sure, I could of used more breather towns like Nautilus, but the pluses heavily outweigh the minuses. Like any game, it's all about the game play (see how much it took of this review?) and coupled with a good overall story, likable characters (let's not forget about the Chocobo chick), is worthy of praise.

Gundam Unicorn 01

2010-03-21T20:30:00.001-07:00

For its fairly high asking price, this BD is a pretty bare-bones release. Luckily the show is quite awesome despite my lack of much Gundam viewing within the UC time line. To put in perspective, the package is so slick that I was able to completely overlook the retro-styled character designs. The music also does its part very well--properly adding emphasis to the carnage on screen. I only hope it production values continue through its entire run, it'd be sad if it turned out like Stargazer.

Don't buy BDs on whim

2010-03-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

Having seen Eva 1.11 few times now, I decided to pick something up alongside its release this week. Having decided to avoid upscaled anime releases until further notice, that left only a few choices. Eventually I settled upon the Eureka Seven movie--big mistake.

To preface, because the main complaint I've read seems to stem from those fond of the TV series, I did not finish watching E7. I probably got 1/4th the way through before it got lost in the shuffle. Not that it would hurt or help, I was surprised how many bits of animation seemed re-used or nostalgic.

Story
It's a love story, and they really beat it down fast and often. There's no shortage of scenes with the "Eureka, Renton, Eureka, Renton" grieving. That said, the basic gist can be summed up as follows:

Aliens invade Earth (why they're called EIZO (pun aside) is beyond me when they say something else in Japanese). A ragtag bunch of people steal the military's secret in order to cure their experimental side-effects (accelerated aging).

How this works or explained is done in the typical muddled anime fashion (something to do with dreams promoting growth). Catching all the nuances seems rather pointless, as I doubt it could elevate the story outside what it is. So maybe its more of a character study? Most characters are not developed beyond a few lines so you can throw that idea out the window.

Animation/Video
I'd hoped they'd the part right... sadly not so. It's basically a extended TV production, great for TV, poor for a movie. Even the newly minted scenes for the movie boast a higher resolution (see fine lines) and some fluid animation but ultimately lack in general detail be it due to the style or whatever. It compares even worse than I thought it would to the FMA movie or Stranger. While I actually like the digital grain, my guess is it was added to better obscure old and new footage (and there are clear areas where certain elements look upscaled). Good thing is the transfer is fantastic, but when the source is generally bland and lifeless, it really matters little. There's really little in terms of big set piece action sequences for things to shine.

Audio
No problems here, although as I focused more of my attention here due to story and animation shortcomings, I realized one thing--anime audio design is fairly weak overall. Not necessarily from a technical level, I can't really say how accurate a swarm of missiles should sound like, but rather the sound library they come from. Most likely it isn't canned sound, but it certainly lacks the ability to generate a "ooh-ahh." Compare this to the recent Gundam Unicorn and you'll know what I mean.

Honestly, I can't really recommend this movie to anyone. The die-hard E7 fans know not to touch and it, but even newcomers to the universe should avoid it. It fails, at the very base level, just to deliver a solid 90 minutes of entertainment, how disappointing.

Video filters blow

2010-02-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

* eyes all that shit Funi BDs *

I swear all the stupid kids these are raised on crap filters these day. Here's a hint, if we could magically gain resolution, someone would've of found out how by now.

* eyes emulation *

2xSAI and all that other crap--you might as well render my stuff with pastels.

Extra layer?

2009-07-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

Looks like someone forgot to turn one off (see: Hawkeye's double head). Also, a disturbing trend lately seems to be with using Photoshop filters to save time--see Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and its posterization.

New stuff

2009-07-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Bakemonogatari - positive
Canaan - positive
Haruhi 2 - neutral
Princess Lover - positive
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - neutral
Umi monogatari - neutral
Umineko no naku koro ni - neutral
Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei - neutral

Not too bad thus far. No outright duds and many of the neutral ones actually have bright spots. Also, FMA: Brotherhood is finally diverging paths from the first series starting EP14.

UP

2009-06-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

One might think with a title like UP, where the visuals are literally floating and the colors span the rainbow, that the movie would be fairly uplifting. I sat there till the end of the credits, perhaps waiting for some humorous end note, but left the theater almost in a neutral daze. Sure I knew about the about the depressing short detailing the younger Fredrickson prior to viewing, but that wasn't the problem. Perhaps the problem was on a less conscious level--watching a character, tired of everything, struggle for nearly 90 minutes. Plenty of laughs in there, but when those moments were over, the same old character was still at center of the screen. He may have changed a towards the end, found the power to move on in life, but in the end, he was still old.

Star Trek

2009-05-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

Summary
+ likeable characters
+ cohesive plot
+ decent special effects
- weak sound
- too much, too little

* Spoiler Alert *

For a reboot movie this one sure packs a lot of stuff, almost too much IMO. We span a few hundred years, the destruction of two planets, and characters both past and present. It sounds like an awful lot until you reflect a little--not much happens over the course of the movie. In other words, a lot of it is underdeveloped. We see little of Vulcan and its people, even less of the Romulans, and just a few scenes on Earth. That's a little disappointing because unlike its predecessors, we're not so much limited by special effects. Fully realized worlds would have been a sight to behold. At times it feels like everything is stitched perfectly together, nothing left to chance and all so calculated. None of the romantic grandeur that is associated with the final frontier.

Luckily, the crew is so natural in their roles that one just might overlook any flaw. That is until your attachment to the characters makes you wish the movie would have delved deeper into their pasts. Odd characters that don't fit are the few aliens scattered here and there just for the sake of creating a sense of galactic scale. Half-assed is best used to describe it. There's the minimalist warp effect which is absolutely amazing contrasted by the not so amazing beams and space artillery. It's a bit of an uneven affair, perhaps some TV heritage popping up, but nothing too disappointing.

Well that is until you hear the darn thing. After Transformers, the bar was significantly raised for any sci-fi picture that I expect new and unique sounds for alien races. Instead, I got the same Star Wars re-hash over and over again, minus all the charm. The most offensive is the scoring work--hardly a memorable tune to grasp at. Note, making the same crap louder and louder in an attempt to create climax only works if the song is conducive to it.

Anime round-up

2009-05-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

07-Ghost
Dropped. Knew better than to try my luck with bishounen.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
I think my last post summed it up thus far--not too impressive. Going have to wait until the later episodes come along.

Hatsukoi Limited
Ichigo 100% designs thrown into bishoujo (can I call it that?) anime about middle school romance! And that's the part that has me scratching my head, they are middle schoolers... Enter your usual character archetypes here.

Hayate no Gotoku 2
More of the same, which isn't necessarily good. My attention had already began wander during the second half of the first series. No KOTOKO OP is a downer but it looks like J.C. Staff has done a admirable job taking over animation duties.

Higashi no Eden
H&C character designs and stop-motion ED paired with a motion graphics OP. Story is very interesting and does a good job keeping you wanting to learn more about the "game." Going to end up as a one-watch series though.

K-On
Runner up this season is another Kyo-ani production. Good for lighthearted comedy.

Sengoku Basara
My pick for this season. Nothing like a bunch of hot-blooded dudes duking it out with near-superhuman powers. A little animation and VA issues (Ichi) going on in EP5 but good nonetheless. And ya, that gun-wielder on Oda's side is a hottie.

Tayutama - Kiss on my Diety
Ninomiya meets mysticism with awkward results. The character of Mashiro just doesn't feel genuine or correct even by wonky harem anime standards. It could be uneven VAing but luckily this thing isn't worth much beyond the usual fan service.

Tears to Tiara
I'm hoping this one turns out unexpectedly good like Utawarerumono, a all-around solid but unspectacular affair. So far it's still working out the introductory kinks.

Valkyria Chronicles
Nice to see Kana finally get a different role to channel her energy into. CG integration is a little bit on the cheap side, but expected of a game adaptation. Not bad but still needs some time.

Off RO again...

2009-05-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

Title says it all. On a separate note, I'm not sure I completely understand the point of the "new" FMA series. Sure there are different bits and all, but the whole thing is a slightly condensed rehash thus far. I had heard the the original deviated from the manga towards the end, so maybe this one won't? And then there's Mustang's voice...

Vocaloids & Speakers

2009-04-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

Hatsune Miku probably doesn't ring a bell to casual anime fans, yet it's one character you've all seen before--you know, the turquoise haired one with a headset sometimes wielding a leek. The short of it is that Hatsune Miku is a vocal synthesizer (vocaloid) develop by Yamaha that allows you to type/arrange words and it'll sing it, very much like working with MIDI. Now for whatever reason, Miku seems to have gotten quite popular (although the same cannot be said for her latter brethren), so much that she has her own albums.

I listened to a few of these and while initially impressive, further listening made it clear the ceveat of a vocal synth--it always sounds the same. The voice has very little in randomness and generally did not deviate in tone between one track to another. It also has a tendency to slur words together but for what is worth, some of the songs are still quite fun to listen to. Given her electronic sounding voice, you'll notice that the majority of all songs are arranged using a similar style. The ones that don't are more special because they illustrate that Miku's vocals are quite passable.

The last music tidbit was my recent speaker upgrade to Logitech's Z-5500 system. Thus far the package is pretty impressive. It handles mids and lows much better than my old Z-4 but not quite so well with the highs. The sub also fares worse at low volume levels but really shines at normal volumes and especially during movies. I'm still in the process of finalizing where the sub should go so more notes later.

Yep, I'm still here

2009-02-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

Been busy with a bit of lazy thrown in; here's the low-down on what's happened lately.

Left 4 Dead
Given the Steam 50% off this past weekend, I picked it up. If you're online and would like to play, look me up @ GoHappyMan.

Back on iRO
Gasp, yes I'm currently playing Ragnarok Online again (nearing two months). However, not on Valkyrie as one might expect, but actually on Iris. Nothing serious other than something to do (good seeing how Guild Wars 2 just got possibly delayed). Have a BS (60), TU priestess (85), Rogue (73), and Wizard (75) so I'm trying some classes I never played before. Anyone who still plays should use this tweak, works wonders (just TcpAckFrequency, NO need for the MSMQ service). Getting a bit bored though, so might quit pretty soon again.

Running Windows 7
Works like a champ with no major crashes or problems. On exit from RO though, sometimes the desktop remains black. To my surprise RO runs much much faster on W7 over Xp. For example, when crossing the bridge on the map west of Geffen it skips frames whereas it's smooth all the way though on W7. I'm guessing it actually compensates for a lot of the sloppy programming done by Grav by using separate render threads and the newer more efficient WDM 1.1 driver model.

W7 does a little more than Vista in fixing the annoyingly cluttered left column in Explorer. It's not ideal but better. Also whereas I seemingly run into random HDCP detection issues with each new patch of PowerDVD 8 Ultra, W7 has yet to have a hitch.

New Anime Rankings
Minami-ke: Okaeri
Maria+Holic
Munto TV
Asu no Yoichi
The Tower of Druaga: Sword or Uruk
Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th season
Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou
White Album

Nothing bad in there except possibly White Album (yawn...).

Zii what?

2009-01-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

In a becoming trend, Creative does love to position itself to be laughed at. While Zii technology (?) information is scarce, one has to question Creative's uninspired naming and design sense. When you claim something to be revolutionary yet spit out something that looks like design student with brain-freeze plagiarism, your credibility is undermined. I'll reserved judgment until more information is available, heh.

Yeah rrright...

2008-12-06T21:45:00.000-08:00

I was checking for an updated driver and I stumbled onto this in the product summary section for my X-Fi XtremeMusic:

"The world's fastest audio processor for ultra-fast gaming, equivalent to a Pentium 4 3.6GHz and 24 times the power of Sound Blaster Audigy."

Heh, I'd like to see what kind of metric backs that one up. But it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, Creative's always been a little shady with their marketing/rebadging of products. More reason to care less when they go the way of the dodo (which will prolly happen within a decade).

Anime Rarity

2008-12-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

As Tales of the Abyss is starting fall into a steady pace, one thing that struck me is how much I like Anise's character. Her two-faced personality helps erase my typical adverse reaction to annoying characters of her size. I particularly enjoyed her harsh criticism of Luke after the Aza-whatever incident.

Oh I got my Byousoku 5 cm Blu-Ray--friggin' amazing! Compared to the DVD, the whole thing is absolutely stunning. With bitrates commonly in the 30's and peaking into the 40's, every shot is extemely solid/stable. Considering the majority of the show is pans and stills, this is one not to be overlooked. The increased resolution also led me to notice a fair amount of "new" facial expressions in characters during medium-far range shots. The only lackluster part was the 4.0 LPCM track not present in the R1 release; mainly because I hardly hear the rears being used.

Upgrade Fun

2008-11-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

Whew, it's been quite a long time since my last post. Between work and my more routine habits, there's just been next to little time. The big news since then has been my computer upgrade: new CPU, mobo, ram, and unexpectedly, another video card (let's just say I managed to finally break something). System now includes:

Core 2 Quad 8200 @ 2.8 (stock cooling, voltage)
Gigabyte P43 mobo
2x 2GB OCZ DDR2 1066 (5-5-5-15)
Gigabyte 4850 512MB (Zalman cooler ver.)
ASUS BD/DVD-RW
2x Seagate drives (old, from the .8 (SATA1) and .9 (SATA2) families)
X-Fi XtremeMusic
Antec Earthwatts 650

Then Q8200 was actually stable at 2.87 but I scaled back to 2.8 as a precaution. The biggest problem was actually the 4850 because New Egg sent me a new refurb rather than new card. While it's working just fine and I've run it through a bunch of tests, I contacted CS and they offered to replace it or give me a $15 discount (hoo boy) if I wished to keep it. After scrutinizing the PCB I decided on the latter since the warranty remains the same as if it was new. No problems with the temps at all, even in my single fan mid-tower: ~40 idle, ~56 load.

Stacking them up

2008-10-20T00:23:00.000-07:00

In general, this anime season actually feels fairly decent with few outright bombs. Maybe I'm getting lax--I've noticed for series I'm less interested in, I have no qualms browsing the web while it plays in the background.

Clannad - After Story
Kannagi
Gundam 00 - S2
Toradora
Nodame Cantabile - Paris-hen
Ga-Rei Zero
Tales of the Abyss
Tytania
Casshern Sins
Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka
Earl and Fairy

*** DROPPED ***
Rosario + Vampire Capu 2
Yozakura Quartet
To Aru Majutsu no Index
Shikabane Hime Aka (licensed)
Chaos Head
Kurozuka (yawn)

October Anime

2008-10-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka
Nagase has a pink 360! Plenty of familiar voices in this one, but probably nothing more than a typical school-romance-comedy. Tossing in a princess character doesn't help at all. More Geno-Killer legends plz.

Casshern Sins
Never saw the movie nor the original anime, but this one does seem to hold a little bit of promise. I say little because currently, the pacing proves to be a tad slow and the story bare bones yet the style is an intriguing mesh of old and new. It has the old look of say Cyborg 009 plus a new sheen courtesy of the more recent Mega Man series.

Chaos Head
Taku really needs to lay off on the drugs. Plus who the hell lives in a shipping crate on top of a building? At least he seems to agree that something like this would never happen in real life. Even the ED lyrics are delusional, LOL.

Clannad - After Story
Yes, Sunohara is back!!!

Earl and Fairy
Reverse harem! Lydia easily wins the best female design this season but doesn't have the voice to match it. Could it be Kotoko rubbing off?

Ga-Rei Zero
Umm, yawn? I mean, she just rocked that monster with her bike, bitch'n! (*end sarcasm*). The kind of boring action anime that makes you want to turn off your brain. If it weren't for the last sequence, it would be a total flop. Not bad music though.

Gundam 00 - Season Two
Jeebus, it looks like people just won't stay dead. At least it seems they've brought back a little bit more of the inter-union struggles that made the earlier parts of season one more interesting.

Kannagi
Thus far Jin and Nagi make a pretty good combination, to the point that the show feels extremely refreshing. Sure there are misunderstandings and such, but underlying the whole show is a general sense of peace. This is also one of the rare times I didn't get annoyed when the main character was subject to some abuse.

Kurozuka
Umm... ya... funny how one of the most violent series also feels like one of the slowest.

Mouryou no Hako
Boring boring boring...

Nodame Cantabile - Paris-hen
I think you and I probably know how this show will be. OP feels a bit cheap both visually and aurally.

Rosario + Vampire Capu 2
I skipped over season one but it seems like the kind of show where it matters little. Despite all the fan-service, when I think about it, Moka-san is the only attractive character.

Shikabane Hime Aka
For some odd reason, despite its fairly plain looks and animation, its probably one of the season's more attractive titles. That alone warrants some watching but the story the average forgettable fare.

Tales of the Abyss
Ironically the title I'm most looking forward to is most likely to flop, LOL. Having Anise as a two-faced brat really has to be the best thing ever.

To Aru Majutsu no Index
Hmm, need to watch a little more I think--feels too much like a mish-mosh of things. At least the main lead is level-headed...

Toradora
I don't know where, but the face thing has to be done before. That said, casting Louise (who might also be in Akane-iro) for Taiga (Chiaki!) doesn't seem like a good thing IMO. While the characters match in personality, after three series of Zero no Tsukaima, she's starting to get a bit annoying.

Tytania
Space opera FTW. Sadly, there's not a pretty face in sight. 80's crap ED song FTL.

Yozakura Quartet
A good deal of super-natural anime this round. Half human/half youkai city premise, blah blah doesn't strike much of a chord. The only thing I thought was, "boy, do I like Kotoha's voice."

Gwyneth Paltrow retouching disaster

2008-10-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder how those working in the in movie biz keep their jobs. Adding the the poor extras video quality I mentioned prior, which really didn't matter since it wasn't part of the main film, is this bomb of a retouch job.

Essentially it seems like the post-processing people wanted to remove some skin defect just above Gwyneth Paltrow's left eyebrow. As a result, there are clearly scenes where a really sloppy brush was used to totally blur/blow out parts of her forehead (see when she goes to steal the data). Hell if you pay attention closely, you'll notice in the sequence before Tony gives his last press conference, there's clearly a brush dot moving about her forehead.

It's just sad really, I just hope the people who do such a bang-up job on the special FX weren't responsible for this.

Iron Man et. all

2008-10-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly acquiring more and more BDs--the latest Iron Man. While the movie is still terrific and all, the video production for the extra segments is highly lacking. That is to say, most of the keying (when you remove something from a background) is atrocious. This is the either the equivalent of improperly shot (non blue/green screen, poorly lit) interviews or someone who had no clue how to use Keylight or whatever software they were using. Just take a look and anyone who's imposed on some sort of image. The settings are so aggressive that it literally eats away at the person (in Downey's case, his black shirt as well), and looks like an extreme case of dot crawl. It's kinda of scary when the extras for such a high-profile production are this poor. Also, there's some definitely low bit-rate encoding for the deleted scenes as well.

Transformers is the better example of extras done well. But putting that aside, it's also much much more aurally impressive. Where I can re-watch Iron Man soley for the suit, I can watch Transformers soley for the sound. Other additions include Ratatouille, The Rock, and Letters from Iwojima, all excellent in their own regards.

R3... I think not

2008-09-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

So Code Geass R2 manages somehow to wrap everything up. While I doubt there will ever be another series, given Sunrise's track record, I won't rule out a few extra OVAs. From a plot perspective, things weren't so bad, although there was a string of two or three EPs prior to EP24 that had some pretty horrible animation. Again, and I can't stress enough, most anime constantly fail in providing a decent length epilogue. On a director commentary I saw lately, someone had mentioned that how a favorable movie review is often dependant on the ending. By that notion, you would think a little more effort would be put in. While I'm no longer singing Geass-induced praise, if Bandai does annouce US blu-rays, I will still snatch them up.

Macross Frontier also came to an end... which is a good thing. Listening to all those songs being mish-mosed edited reminded me just how badly the general direction had fallen apart. To that end, maybe the series would've been better served with 13 EPs.

Special A finished and boy was that a hard pill to swallow. Plague with inconsistent animation and some pretty uninspired humor meant much preparation was needed to wade through each episode. Unlike Ouran High School Host Club, the surrounding cast besides Kei and Hikari was entirely forgettable and weak.

Toshokan Sensou wrapped up nicely a while back barring a animation slip or two but will be relegated to a one-off watch kind of anime. There's just not much to come back to, be it exciting battles, humor, or an intricate plot line.

Appleseed: Ex Machina & Paprika

2008-09-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

What do both titles have in common? Blu-ray releases of course! Even given the sad state of BD anime releases, I went ahead and got a BD drive (with DVD-RW) given a host of reasons that I won't go into here.

General BD impressions: In my mind, I expected that anime wasn't exactly the best medium for high definition. My suspicion lay in the fact that apart from better defined line art and background details, the resolution of something drawn can never match that of photography. Solid fills will always be solid fills, and given the move from traditional cell animation, it's not like you're going to see pencil or brush strokes anymore. With that frame of mind, I'm fairly pleased with how both titles looked. Appleseed is the clearer of the two, but it was selected with that in mind, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Once I get a Hollywood movie title (Iron Man seems to be the closest candidate), I'll be able to draw better conclusions.

Appleseed: Ex Machina
Despite being a little disappointed, like ALL things you don't outright despise, it can grow on you given a little time. Frankly I found the climax to be a total letdown with the Matrix: Revolutions battle more of a production time compromise than novel idea (yes, I know he said he was inspired). Also, for the love of god, don't typeset credits so damn large, it only serves to remove yourself from more polished movies. That said, the movie moves along quite smoothly, the story flows rather well, and there's little in terms of gaping holes. However, given the rapid advancement of CGI, it's certainly not a movie to visually stand the test of time but again, for a one-off kind of thing (like all movies), it's not so bad.

Apart from some aliasing and minor banding, I had little fault with the visuals. Some of the lighting anomalies people mentioned were not compression issues but rather poor artistic choices in depicting certain scenes/effects. Also you might have noticed some rendering issues in the soft-shadows, again, nothing to do with the release. You know it's sad (the level of the viewers) when the producer has to comment that many people thought the opening scene was the result of poor encoding.

The extras (all in HD) are a pretty good watch, though it's pretty funny seeing the same people talking across all three, and how the styling in banners changes with each one. In the end, my take away items are Briarios' incredibly cute "bunny ears" and those wasp-like carrier crafts: awesome! Oh, wait, lets not forget the pseudo dubtitles... eww.

Paprika
Reading some reviews prior made me think I would be totally lost with this one. To my surprise, the story elements went by incredibly smoothly. Even if you aren't able to take in 100% of all the frame details, there are enough visual cues that should make distinguishing who's dream sequence incredibly easy, a key in keeping your bearings when watching. Likewise, there's a sense that it's not necessary to know all the details--like the synapse jumping and theory behind the DC Mini, which allows you to focus on the visuals that much more. Also, paying more attention to subtle gestures and dialogue can easily give away most characters' state of mind. That said, I noticed myself constantly fixated on a minor detail like how Tokita's weight would deform cars, chairs, beds, LOL. Since I harped on Appleseed's typesetting, I will say I hate Paprika's title font--looks horrible as if they didn't want to go all out and make it interesting.

One reservation I had with picking up the title was the MPEG2 encode. Despite scrutinizing much of the film, scouring for black blocks, the film holds up very well. The only thing that comes close is the slight noise/artifacting when there's confetti in the scene. These aren't blocks mind you, just slight instability around tiny pixels.

Key to Paprika is the music. From when I first saw the trailer, the blend of electronic meets Disney electric parade is incredibly addicting. Of course there are lyrics, but ah is it ever so catchy. Also the true HD track seemed incredibly strong, much more so than Appleseed's 5.1 (640kbit). Whether it's a mere sound mastering difference, I don't know. While Megumi's VA job is solid, I think she should really retire; her voice sticks out too much and easily gets flooded by images of her previous works.

SHINE

2008-08-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for all the lack of updates, but with work occupying most of my time, less important things fall out of the loop. Rest assured, I'm still keeping up with my anime so I'll get to that if something standout happens.

Actually, I thought I'd mention that the L'Arc~en~Ciel single containing SHINE (Serei no Moribito OP) came out just the other day. Listening to it totally reminds me of their early songs like Blurry Eyes and Dive to Blue...

And oh, WTF has happened to Macross Frontier...

Summer Anime '08 (updated)

2008-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely kicking off, it seems like I've already skipped over quite a few series. Of interest so far:

Natsume Yuujinchou (xxxHOLiC type)
Slayers Revolution
Tetsuwan Birdy Decode (style reminiscent of Eureka 7)
Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (properly done Crystal Blaze)
---
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (pending...)
Koihime Musou (pending...)
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora (too slow)
Sekirei (FAIL)
Antique Bakery (bisho? skip)
Chocolate Underground (chara design, skip)
Telepathy Shoujo Ran (chara design, skip)

Notes: as usual, anime that don't pass the one-off style test get the skip. It's usually fairly easy to tell though, no children leads, no semi-to-full chibi style (non-outtakes), no manga style, no retro, no bishounen (unless with bishoujo, IE Vampire Knight), and no crappy low-level looking animation.

Slayers Revolution is somewhat pushing the limit on retro and somewhat crappy animation, yet it's hard not to like someone who uses their powers freely at will.

While Mahou Tsukai has a nice OP song, interesting blend of photographic and painted art style, it's ultimately too slow and boring. Like the first series, which I struggled to finish after who knows how long, the stories here are just too bland (even worse than Diamond Dust Drops). Doesn't help that the animation extremely poor (in a BECK kinda style).

Some good, some not so good

2008-07-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

A while back it had been post by Chris Beveridge that Anime on DVD had been sold off to mania.com. Now that the site has completed integration, my god is it fucking ugly (please note specifically did not use fugly for emphasis). Not only does it have plenty of garbage space, but the additional click throughs, improperly sized images, long columns, and general "someone did a bad face job butt ugliness" are all present. In short, this is not an issue about change, as I was neither a fan of the old site, but that was at least understandable given how it began and who was running it. Now that an official business is behind it, I expect a little more styling than something out of the 1990's. Of course looking around the site it's fairly obvious that it won't happen any time soon. When headlines are nothing more than a thumbnail with five words or less... you got to be kidding me.

Then we have the flip side: my Wacom Bamboo that came today. The reason I bought a tablet is not because I wanted to draw/brush (that's an added plus), but because I was looking for alternative non-mouse methods to use my computer (gotta keep carpal in check). With that, I settled on Wacom's cheapest tablet and to my surprise, the packaging was quite remarkable for something ~$53 (+ shipping). Using the tablet though, is going to take much more time. Frankly I was hoping to be able to use it like a large touch pad but it is non responsive without the stylus. Oh well, at least the build is very nice even if I'm not a fan of glossy plastic.

Just lame

2008-07-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Keeping with the OS-centric posts lately, this one's on DVD playback on OS X, more specifically the lack of any sort of hardware decode acceleration. Umm ya, so my GeForce 8600M GT is being put to waste not doing anything at all... no wonder Apple has no HD support. Works out of the box? Ya, if "works" means a bare minimum implementation. The higher integration of GPU in Snow Leopard better not just mean added DVD decode support, LOL!

Jumping the gun

2008-07-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

After some more Vista use, I think it's actually growing on me. My core complaint that items are too many layers deep still remains, yet it unmistakenkably has become more fun to use. For a little on how this works, we will take a trip down memory lane, one familiar to older computer users.

Those who've used computers for a decent amount of time must remember the days when the damn things cost anywhere from 3-4k. Unlike today, hardware performance was clearly a limitation (remember 640k?) and my generation of users often felt it was necessary to tweak the OS in order to get the maximum out of what little there was. Ironically, this tweaking habit has carried itself across several generations beginning with Windows 3.1 all the way to Vista.

The problem is that rather than let Vista flaunt all it's new found features, I was essentially stripping it of everything in order to make it like the previous generation (for maximum performance). It goes without saying that if you make Vista as close to Xp as possible there will no merits to using Vista. This goes well beyond just tweaking but general usage habits as well.

Let's take searching for example: as a experienced user, I know where all my files are--my folders/drives have been organized in such a way that everything is easy to find; so why use search? Why use search when turning on indexing would degrade HDD performance? Clearly it is a function better catered to those who save their files to the first place they see, fail to properly name things and soon forget where it went, I.E. the generation of computer users who use computers like any other electronic and expect it to work without understanding why. Even on my MBP, I rarely use Spotlight as I've started memorizing where OS X likes to store preferences, caches, etc.

However, searching is clearly a good feature IMO, it just doesn't mesh well with my habits. Certainly those raised on Google and YouTube must appreciate it. So I've decided to give Vista a new lease on life by turning on more Aero (I still tweak it so context menus appear instantly), giving the new Start Menu a chance, and working a little more with its Explorer integration. I highly appreciate the bundled DVD playback, although WMP11 still fails to impress me just like iTunes.

Broken by design?

2008-07-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Given that I've poked around most of OS X (there's not much to do) despite Apple liking to patch the thing just as much as MS, I got a little bored. With my desktop less work-critical, I decided to have a little fun and took the much postponed stab at Vista. Now before you Apple peeps get all high and mighty, this is strictly a comparison between Windows Xp Pro SP3 (x86) and Vista Ultimate SP1 (x86) unless specifically noted.

I like Aero, in fact at a glance it's much prettier than the highly overrated OS X... But if Apple does anything right, it's making sure all their icons look consistent--not quite so much with Vista, which has carry-overs all the way from '98, ewww. Even little tweaks like a shorter-tailed cursor and new busy icon look nice, yet for every welcome tweak there's one old icon to be found.

From a usability stand-point, Vista feels almost downright broken. For starters, Ctrl+W (close window) fails to work half the time!!! Locking the taskbar doesn't properly cut icons off (especially if you add a My Computer toolbar, which does not include the Control Panel anymore) and things seem to be hidden many layers deep. Sometimes it feels that they decided to split everything into subcategories. For example, things that used to be kept in Display Properties are now split into Personalize, then a whole slew of individual sections, WTF?! Explorer sorting options don't apply to every folder (like drive level) and the Run menu feels far too cluttered. I could go on forever but there's just so much crap that unless there's a super TweakUI somewhere, everything has some little problem. If anything, UAC wasn't too annoying IMO and can be easily turned off.

On a technical standpoint, Vista has a whole lot more services and from the get go, but as usual those can be tailored to your liking. Actually, performance was quite zippy even on this old system and I had no problems at all getting everything up and running. Guild Wars ran fine as far as I could tell, but the hardware deprived sound was a completely different matter, ugh. Alchemy did little to help despite being listed as a tested game.

At least it's safely stored on a separate partition so there's no rush to can it (unlike crappy Boot Camp).

More MBP Impressions

2008-06-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

Things have been going smoothly (not that I didn't expect them to). Barring any serious gaming due to the notebook chassis and overall weak video card (8600M GT), I've found equivalents to almost all the programs I used on a PC. Some more thoughts...

- There's no HDD light or indicator (same with my tower at work), so I'm forced to run Activity Monitor at login (think Task Manager on Xp).
- The super drive isn't super at all, it can't read some of my anime DVDs.
- Putting cable connectors on the left and right side isn't such a good idea, especially if the MBP is not elevated off the table.
- Not being able to delete items straight from the Finder to the Trash with a key is annoying
- How come there's no shortcut to drop down the top menus in the particular app you're using? (the ALT+... equivalent)
- equivalent MAC downloads are much bigger (ie FF3 is 17.2 MB vs 7.14 MB)

I'm sure there's more, but since I'm generally off my MBP when not doing work, I tend to forget things. But enough of that, let's talk about something more important: Boot Camp.

Boot Camp works fairly well minus a few caveats the largest being: your drive cannot be partitioned prior/post installation. That alone forced me to remove my installation once I got done testing. The second is the amount of Apple services and drivers Boot Camp needs to install to get things working. This isn't so much of an issue as is not being able to select what you want during installation. Each part does appear later in Add/Remove Programs, but I'd prefer to keep them from making junk entries to begin with. That would be especially helpful because standard drivers for individual components (like the Realtek on-board audio) work just fine if you can find them. Boot times are horrific as well.

I did get the chance to run Parallels (lets you run Windows while in OS X) while I was at it and it was quite fun, especially the level of configuration for your VM. That said, sometimes there would be visual glitches (we're not even talking D3D) on the 2D desktop, like task bars not properly disappearing, so I quickly dropped it (plus it installed its own slew of services).

First... from a MAC?!

2008-06-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

Let me make this very clear: I hate all fanboi-sm, especially that between MAC and PC users. That said, my view has generally been the same, today's MACs just use a different OS, nothing more nothing less. I've long held the belief that those users who've made the switch between PC to MAC, and subsequently claimed that it is easier, typically tend to neglect one point: that they carried general computer knowledge (from jargon to just technical familiarity) when they made the shift. From ground zero, learning a MAC is no harder than a PC, just different.

So why am I on a MAC? Long story short, I need one for work. Not only to improve my speed (IE cmd vs ctrl keys), but in case I need to work outside the office. So, in the next few weeks, I'll be probably posting my impressions since the last Apple we had was a IIGS.

Here are a few things I've noticed so far while setting up, downloading the 10.5.3 update (ya, 430MB = a service pack + QT/iTune patches, LAWL), and going through system preferences: I hate the Apple's font smoothing--even on light, it looks way too thick. It looks decent on large type, but fails miserably on thin type. Installing stuff is somewhat different (running FF3 already), .dmg files don't automatically launch but mount themselves first, then you launch. Nothing bad, just maybe an extra click or so. I really miss having PG UP/DN and backspace keys (I'm on a MBP 15"). Everything runs smooth, which is expected since I installed 4GB RAM (~$100 from Crucial) and used the 7.2k HDD option (plus my desktop is still a Athlon X2 3800+). More thoughts as they come.

I can't be the only one thinking this...

2008-06-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

With Street Fighter IV nearing completion, one has to wonder how half of these new fighters made the cut. Let's be honest, even the earliest Street Fighter has its fair share of weirdos, but sometimes change is good. Let's run down the list shall we?

Abel: I have no qualms with this one. Looks normal enough, kinda like a MMA fighter.
Crimson Viper: female gangster reject, like the typical anime delinquent circa 1980's, and she's American to boot!
El Fuerte: I'm sure the Hispanics are gonna be happy about this one... at least make him less of a clown and something cooler like those in Saturday Night Slam Masters.
Rufus: granted I haven't seen anything but the bios artwork, but he looks nothing more than a fat American biker reject, next!
Seth: can't call him a unique character, looks like Urien from SF3, who was questionable to begin with.

So there you have it, four of five characters fail right off the bat. Makes you wonder where the creative minds put all their effort? You recycle a good ~75% percent of the entire roster and you can't even come up with some decent looking new characters, pathetic.

A little about D.C. II S.S.

2008-05-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to post this but this time I won't fail! Is it just me or do many of the characters in D.C. II S.S. have sleepy/droopy eyes. By this I mean the top line is a stronger curve than usual. I think a IRL equivalent would be Tracy McGrady from the Houston Rockets, LOL. Then there's the twitch-fest in the OP, which also seems a little too fast for comfort. Luckily, the show is better than D.C. II, but I wonder how long they can keep dragging this along (seeing the senile Junichi is just funny).

Gone Wall'n

2008-05-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

In attempt to accelerate the onset of carpal tunnel (j/k), I went on a anime walling spree. That's three wallpapers with a vector each in the span of about a week. That's also well over 60+ hours spent given the post revisions/alternates, wow.

You can find all three walls on my Anime Paper profile page (click Wallpapers to see all).

I'm not exactly sure what caused it, I guess I wanted to prove I could actually finish a vector and wall worthy of something I'd put on my desktop. After the initial result, it was more fun than not just seeing how well things would turn out; that urge to constantly see the image develop with each added layer.

Of the three, Euphie is the best character, Himawari the best BG, and Adelicia the best visual balance. All three have insanely fine hair--note to self: avoid curls and long hair next time. I toyed with the idea of making a Tsukino (Yakitate Japan!!) wall, but I think it's time to call it a day.

Even Code Geass R2 can falter...

2008-05-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

Did they think no one would notice the animation drop for EP7?

Firefox 3 RC1 & Flash Player 10 Beta

2008-05-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've been using FF3 since it went beta and love it. There are definitely some tangible speed benefits when going to more complex sites (Javascript heavy) since beta 4. Supposedly it also boasts better memory management, but it's not like I leave Task Manager open while browsing so I don't know. The "new" skin is hit or miss really, but I keep my interface so minimal that all I see is the small back and front buttons. They did tone down the green color on those buttons, I like that (ya, I pick up small things like that). The only hitch is some videos still fail to load at THG (RC1 fixed pretty much any other site).

Then there's the Flash Player 10 Beta that came out earlier this week. Normally I could care less as I have have little to complain about besides atrocious MAC performance (not that I use one, but for work...). What caught my eye was the little blurb about expanded video acceleration support (yes!) so I gave it a install and headed over to The Design Charts (lots of Flash intensive sites). Some things are noticeably faster, others not so. I'm guessing the slow sites just have a lot of Actionscript overhead, which is more CPU limited than not.

A final note, I graduated again, yay!

Iron Man Movie Review

2008-05-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

Doing my usual post-opening weekend viewing, I caught Iron Man this afternoon over at the Metreon.

Let's be honest here, I don't read comics and probably never will (seeing how manga would logically come first), but I very much enjoyed the movie given what little expectation: delivering on a bad-ass robot suit. You could call it love at first sight, but what's kept me pumped for the last two months prior is one thing: Iron Man's awesome looking mask, more specifically, that frowning mouth.

From all the positive reviews (currently 93% @ RT), I actually thought Downey Jr. would be delivering killer lines one after the next; so much that I actually felt slightly underwhelmed and started pondering when the next witty jab would come. I don't mean to say this negatively, what's there is very good, it's just a difference in expectations. However, there are a few things I felt were a little weak.

*SPOILERS*

One: Jin-seng (whatever) runs out guns blazing to buy Stark time to power up the suit followed by his corny deathbed speech. He should of been instantly shot dead, nuff said.

Two: Iron Man's first sortie into the Afghan village. The extras doing this scene looked strangely out of place. I don't know if costuming was at fault but it definitely didn't look very convincing compared to the earlier terrorist base camp.

Three: close-up F-22 pilot looked a tad cheap.

Four: how Stark survives the blast and not Obi is somewhat a mystery to me.

To the good stuff: Iron Man is smoking. If jets are an order of magnitude sexier than exotic cars, then the suit is another order up. When Stark first puts on the unpainted suit, OMFG it was sooo f*cking awesome it almost blew my mind seeing every little bit lock in and assemble--it's one sleek streamlined orgy of a machine. All the anticipation up till that point paid off in spades. *drools* This was the movie to me, everything after was extra.

Speaking of yummy goodness, It would be hard to overlook the added spice provided by Pepper Potts (so sue me). Just goes to show that sophisticated sexy outclasses everything else. *sizzle*

As with any CG extravaganza, my primary concern is with the "weight" of things. Non-existent objects interacting with the environment should look like they belong and move with a certain mass. Iron Man clears this wonderfully so I have little to complain about in the special effects department.

My only worry is that with the whole suit build-up gone, what will be left for the inevitable sequel? Sure, I'm betting we'll get to see War Machine, but will it be as exhilarating? Till then, I'll be content watching this one over and over--can you say first non-anime BD purchase?

ARIA release!

2008-05-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

Great news in that Nozomi Entertainment (who will also be releasing Maria-sama ga miteru) got the R1 license for ARIA and will be releasing the season one boxset ($49.99!!!) around September.

While I will be picking up the DVD releases for both these series, I can't helped but be extremely disappointed at the general state of HD anime releases. I guess I can't complain since just this week there were reports that despite the demise of HD-DVD, Blu Ray sales haven't taken off at all. I find it particularly annoying that some suggest consumers can't see the difference between between SD and HD. My god, I suppose that's true if you're blind or not wearing glasses. Given that a PC Blu Ray drive is ~$120, I'd really like to get into HD a tad earlier (a BD drive will be in my next computer regardless) but there are so few titles out there, pffft.

So while I'm stuck in SD/HD limbo I thought I might take a look into manga, more specifically Aqua/ARIA--we'll see how that goes. Speaking of ARIA, with both the manga and anime reaching end, I'm quite sad. The anime seemed quite hasty towards the end where everyone suddenly started making it up to Prima (the manga has me seriously worried when there's controversy because Tokyopop didn't use Prima, why?). That is until you realize that despite all their idolizing and aspiring to said position, it really isn't that unique. If it were, then each company would have serious personel issues making money. Still with the series left completely open, one can only hope that Amano-san will continue the series sometime in the future. Akari's new look at the end totally reminded me of Alto from Macross F, LOL.

Stacking it up

2008-05-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm pretty much done laundry listing the new shows, it's time to see how they stack up against each other.

Code Geass R2
Macross Frontier (demoted for singing)
Toshokan Sensou (growing on me rapidly)
xxxHOLiC Kei
D.C. II S.S.
Itazura na Kiss (close to D.C.)
Kurenai
ToLOVERU (fan-service)
Wagaya no Oinarisama (wait & see)
Kanokon (more fan-service)
Special A (falling)
Tower of Druaga
Vampire Knight
Crystal Blaze
Nabari no Ou
Soul Eater (borderline)
*dropped*
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
Amatsuki
Blassreiter
Allison to Lillia

Spring Anime

2008-04-24T03:05:00.000-07:00

Allison to Lillia
I don't know if I can even bring myself to watch this retro-looking title. Nice OP song though.

Amatsuki
Hair as a muffler? This series has the same problem as Nabari no Ou--a way too timid/indifferent main character. I can't help but wish that the Nue would of cracked his head open, yawn.

Blassreiter
The OTHER GONZO series being streamed online. Crappy CG kills the whole thing.

Code Geass R2
Most people were probably waiting for this series.

Crystal Blaze
A City Hunter vibe detective show? Problem is, generally these things end up being too cheesy for their own good (like odd jobs finding lost pets). Having a naked woman running around for the latter part of EP1 may seem like a good idea, but it wasn't enough to distract from the boring plot.

D.C. II S.S
Another series that most people should know what they're getting into. Looks like there will be a greater focus on Yoshiyuki's "sisters" this time around. Strangely enough, this is one series where I'd like Sakura to show up more (maybe because she's a holdover from D.C.?).

Itazura na Kiss
Retro-looking school comedy romance. I like how Kotoko's buddies are like gangsters (it's Kawachi from Yakitate Japan!!), LOL.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
So this is what happens when you throw together a bunch of weirdos and call them a family. I guess it's suppose to be funny and all, but I find myself more annoyed than not thanks to Kyouka erratic personality.

Macross Frontier
May even edge out Code Geass this season... that is when no one is singing off-stage.

Nabari no Ou
You would think having a bunch of ninjas would be hard to mess up. Better yet, these are ninja disguised as every day people. Even despite my lax attitude towards masterful story-telling, it did seem to me that some of the lines came from far left field. I guess the nonchalant attitude of the main character somewhat bugs me.

Kurenai
Talk about a lot of weird women... It's not just the women either, the entire rhythm of the show feels slightly off. Just listen to the pace of the conversations between Kurenai and Murasaki; it kind of bounces back and forth. Kurenai sounds like Hayate...

Soul Eater
If the art style wasn't disappointing enough, the show seems poised to adopt a more episodic setup. Sad because I'd really like to see Shinigami karate chop some more people.

Special A
School comedy with character designs reminiscent of Ouran Koukou Host Club. Designs aren't too impressive, which is a bit disappointing.

ToLOVERU
Fan-service space alien love comedy. Lacks the charm and design of say UFO Princess Walkure or even Girls Bravo.

Toshokan Sensou
One of the more interesting setups this season. While the idea seems ridiculous (essentially a tug of war between pro/con media censorship groups) given the somewhat serious spin they try to put on it, if it escalates into more serious combat, this could be potentially very interesting. Plenty of familiar voices abound is this one, including Kurenai from Kurenai (although he's a woman here), Kana from Minami-ke, and even Athrun from GSD.

Tower of Druaga
One of two GONZO series being streamed online. It's a RPG parody anime that's pretty funny (has a lot of nods to anime too). I love the OP and its SKA-ish (?) vibe. EP2 drops the comedy and reverts to being a plain fantasy anime. There are a few laughs like when he gets smacked upside the head with a boulder, but with the plummeting animation, it's going to need more.

Vampire Knight
Studio DEEN + vampires = fail? So I thought but there are a few tidbits worth looking into. Of course, I fully expect the animation to tank by EP2, but the school setup is somewhat interesting. As if they didn't drop enough signs before showing Zero was a vampire *rolls eyes*

Wagaya no Oinarisama
Oh why couldn't they just make this a fan-service show. Instead they throw in this Pokemon (ya ya, I know it's not) style mysticism. LOL, is Tenko gonna change genders on whim?

xxxHOLiC: Kei
HOLiC is the kind of anime that slowly grows on you. It's not right for every occasion, but it strikes a better blend of odd explanations and more traditional comedy than say Mushishi. If you weren't convinced after season one, you won't be convinced now.

Gundam OO Thoughts

2008-04-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

*SPOILER warning*

Where to begin? I like Gundam OO and will be following the next season but, Gundam Seed/Destiny is better. Unlike the other Gundam series mentioned, OO felt extremely anti-climatic. There was no huge battle and many of the latter episodes lacked any of the political intrigue that made the first half more gripping. The Celestial Beings seemed more resolved on survival than working toward any goal they had previously aimed for. In other words, things more or less came and went with convenience. Let's wipe some characters, give the Gundam's super-powers to win, and throw in that Flag Fighter (whose name I can't remember because he fell off the map during the second half) for good measure.

This lack of focus is clearly reflected in Setsuna who is muddled in his delusional dreams about some Gundam savior. When you think about it, the script-writers did little to try and explain Setsuna's character apart from making him a child born from war. In that case, they should try and establish more of a personality with his current state (see Sagara Sousuke) but OO is generally lacking in terms of character interactions. Many of the support characters, like Louise + Saji, or even Ali-Al-whatever have more development. Basing a series around such a character, or even core group of characters (see all Meisters) is flawed, and when you take away the supporting story elements (as in the second half), the show falls flat on its face.

The Little Things: Macross Frontier Promo vs. EP1

2008-04-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

After the promo episode was released back in December 2007, the series is finally getting underway. Like many series that undergo changes before the actual release, EP1 contains different edits and additional footage not found in the promo to fit the shorter ~24 min TV time frame.

Differences include: a real OP (more on this later), short ED, omission of the Ghost fighters, more Sheyrl, a flop during the stage performance, slightly different characterization of the UN lady escorting Sheryl, slight edits in the combat scenes, different musical timing (ED song is different), among other things. Most of the edits are neither for better or worse but I do find cutting the Ghost sequence somewhat disappointing as it provided a nice link to Macross Plus and it would realistically seem logical to deploy un-manned fighters before humans. The new Sheryl stuff attempts to establish a early link to the main protagonist (who's name I can't remember at all) but is trivial for the most part.

About the OP; the song is pretty catchy mainly because during the sequence above (where it goes "ima sugu, touch me"), it sounds really nostalgic as if it captured the near-corny j-pop of the 80's. Those interested in the full OP should be able to find the PV floating in youtube. Oh, and please drop the cornball robot spin at the end of the OP, that's something I could forget.

KEY anime

2008-03-31T00:44:00.000-07:00

Now that Clannad's main run (a follow up coming soon) has ended, it time to for another round of comparisons. I think it can be broken down simply like this:

Animation: Air > Kanon > Clannad
Story: Kanon > Clannad > Air
Characters: Clannad > Kanon > Air

These are broad categories so some explanation is required. When I talk about animation, I'm referring to stylistic and well framed shots. At this stage, all three series have excellent animation (being all done by Kyoto Animation) so this is more nitpicking than real complaining. Air undoubtedly had the advantage of first raising the bar while also being less cluttered with a bunch of characters. Kanon suffered mainly from too much snow while Clannad is as stock as any school-centric anime. Again, this is oversimplifying things a bit (you can find nice shots in them all) but for conversation's sake, this'll do.

The stories between Kanon and Clannad are a tighter race and boils down to how much you like the supporting cast and their tales. The larger arcs both deal with memory recollection, but where Clannad ultimately fails is the recurring sequences about the girl and her "robot." If it were somehow integrated a little better with more impact, I could think otherwise.

Clannad wins hands down in the characters category partly due to the inclusion of a dark horse: Sunohara. Yes, you read that correctly. While KEY stuff is better than your typical off-the-counter harem setups, the addition of another male character (with quite funny outbursts) is highly commendable. That said, all the characters in Clannad seem more likable for another reason: they all work together for a common goal. We don't have crazy moody people like Mai, or totally ridiculous people like Makoto (Fuuko is close), and everyone gels better and seem less isolated from one another.

For more on Air vs. Kanon, you also might want to take a look at this old post.

Costume Queen

2008-03-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... if Rahzel didn't sport so many cute looks who knows where Hatenkou Yugi would be. It seems lately some of the shows are so half-assed that I can be half-watching without feeling I missed something.

On the other hand, True Tears left me scratching my head. Sure it looked good and all, but was there more than a simple love triangle? Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but all the characters were flipping weird by the end of the series (read: what was the whole issue with Hiromi and Shinichiro after they both admitted to liking each other?).

Luckily, Spice and Wolf brought back sanity to an otherwise troubled threesome. Despite its merchant technicalities, when compared to the other two series, the characters' motives were by far clearer and easier to understand. Can we say sequel?

And ya, I know this post is a strung together jumble of a mess... the way I end up feeling when watching these shows as of late.

Scrapped Princess & story-telling

2008-03-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's been quite some time since I've last visited this series, somewhere when it was being fansubbed by a-keep I believe. Anyhow, I stopped watching when the project was dropped due to licensing, perfectly timed around EP11 (right before they reveal the whole hoopla about the world). Having a chance to see the series to completion, I'm both somewhat impressed and disappointed.

What remains the strength of the series is the characters and their interactions. The way Pacifica acts is so natural (or in-character) that even as the series nears end, every outburst of hers makes it seem as though the series would continue on forever. Some of the best moments come during the amnesia episodes and even then, her character shines through and through. Let's not forget Fuure either, he had some great moments too and constantly reminded me of No. 4 (Noe's brother) from True Tears.

Surprisingly, the weakest element seems to be the whole sci-fi twist to the plot. We've seen it done over and over that I can no longer remember who originally came up with the idea. It keeps things moving along, but it's certainly no strength of the series. In fact, ever since my memory debacle with Godannar (where I thought I'd only seen half the series when I had indeed seen the whole thing), I couldn't help shake this sense of familiarity while watching.

If anything, it only further reinforces why I'm less and less critical of anime when it comes to an original story: it's nearly impossible to come up with something completely fresh. Hell, I was absolutely sure I had not seen anything beyond EP11, yet despite that, I'd get these bouts of nostalgia until the very end.

PC technology in Mobile Armor?

2008-03-23T17:25:00.001-07:00

LOL, check out the background when they're booting up the Apsalus (OVA11 ~14 min) in Gundam 08th MS Team. Maybe if Zeon used Intel technology, they would've won the war.

Ya, I recently bought the 08th MS and Scrapped Princess collections so I've been doing some anime marathon-ing. Jeez, OVA12 ("Last Resort") is pretty lame (any time you toss in kids) so feel free to skip it; you're not missing anything. I'll have some comments later for sutepri.

Wednesday Wrap-Up

2008-03-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Just a few things (new and old) I'd like to share.

Aria: The Origination EP9 was very touching. It reinforces that Aria has reached a milestone every anime/movie/book/story should strive for: creating a world with characters your audience has a vested interest in. Omedetou Alice!

Patapon is a PSP rhythm game everyone should give a shot. I'd honestly write a in-depth review but given how I already put the game down a few weeks ago, I'm a little lazy. Let's just say I continued to play it well after finishing the game.

Some more Radeon 3850 experiences. Adaptive AA does not work with Guild Wars (Catalyst 7.12-8.3), very disappointing. Every so often (like 1/100), my computer boots up with no display but a quick reboot solves it (thank god I know my hotkeys). Using registry hacks to turn off de-noise and edge enhancement for Avivo in Xp is annoying (sliders available only in Vista, WTF?). It really doesn't matter at this point, as the 9600 GT wipes the 3850 at this price point now.

I gave Mabinogi two whirls (closed and open beta) and it is very promising for a free MMOPRG. I'd continue playing if the interface wasn't so click-reliant (*cough* Lineage 2 *cough*).

Firefox 3 is nearing completion and is a worthy update to v2. I've been using beta 2/3/4 with little to no problems.

I've finally gotten used to my new LCD. While I totally appreciated the wide color gamut, I do have to remember to turn it back to "normal" mode to see how bland color rendering looks on plain computers.

My Sennheiser CX300 earbuds finally got in. After my third pair of of Sony MDR-EX51LP broke (right ear lost sound), I finally decided to make a change. Considering I've been using the same Sony model since my days in Japan, the differences were quite noticeable with these CX300. The noise blocking/reduction is much better than the MDR-EX51LP. In conjunction with the generally louder output, I've been able to reduce my MuVo TX volume setting from 12 to 8. When I say louder, I don't mean it's gotten muddier either. While I would say both earbuds have comparable sound quality, the CX300 are better overall as I can pick out more subtle sounds (be it because of better noise blocking).

HD 2D games easier?

2008-03-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon some Guilty Gear: Overture (a 360 3D beat-em-up) news that led me to find out about BlazBlue (the upcoming 2D fighting game from ARCsys) which in turn got me thinking; are 2D fighters easier to make these days?

In the past, 2D fighters were a time-consuming affair because the designers had to animate things pixel by pixel, frame by frame to accommodate low resolution displays. In the VGA era (640x480), I assumed they continued to do so since the resolution was still somewhat lacking. But now with 720p and possibly 1080p/i, is it possible for developers to use "traditional" digital animation techniques (like anime, which I assume is faster) then down size them to meet resolution requirements? This seems possible especially given that BlazBlue is a new title, and preserving/porting frames from existing titles (ala GG series) is not an issue.

Mai Otome S.ifr OVA 01

2008-02-24T00:19:00.000-08:00

What continues to be one of anime's better guilty pleasures in recent memory, Mai Otome S.ifr is a prequel OVA series to Mai Otome (whereas Zwei was a sequel). That means everything commonly associated with time--namely how characters/places have evolved or seeing that which was alluded to in the sequels. While it isn't clear how Sifr's (voiced by Horo and looks like a young Nao) story will play out, we get to see a lot of Rena (Arika's mother) and that's certainly a good thing. There's also a funny conversation about the relationship between master and meister and its lesbian tendencies. As usual, S.ifr maintains the combination of action, fan-service, and humor so I recommend it to anyone who hasn't been turned off by prior series.

Audio Surf

2008-02-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

This indie title seems to be making news lately--enough so I picked it up on Steam ($10). Basically it takes a song (be it a CD, mp3, wav, etc.) and generates a track with hills, turns, and color blocks based on the waveform analysis. You maneuver your ship collecting various colored blocks to create colored combos on the grid near the bottom of your screen. Depending on what your ship is, there are different abilities and play styles.

I'll admit, even for $10, I was still a little disappointed at first, as the game play seemed awfully bland. But after running more than 30 songs, it soon grew on me as the syncing between track and song is very impressive and compatible between a wide variety of songs. Drum beats cause the course to bump up and down and long notes can cause turns, near-corkscrews, and speedy downhills while overall sound activity determines speed and angle. That's simplifying it a little too much as the analysis is most likely relative to the song itself; a similar beat on one song may not be the same as the other.

Being a indie title, there are some serious polish issues. The most glaring omission is the lack of volume control for the song. Considering this is a music game, that's laughably bad. Next, the highest graphic setting (premium) causes gfx glitches and flickering as it either tries to soft shadow or motion blur (can't really tell). The 3D modeling is flimsy at best and the game relies too much of bursts of sprites (err particle textures) from the left, middle, and right corners to make things look busy. The shader skins are OK but I found myself not caring after a while. There's the scalable interface, which already doesn't look great, further compounded by poor disproportionately sized text and icons.

Yet the saving grace is the online leader board which tracks the scores for each song and works well matching up songs (despite numerous nomenclatures) using a variety of variables (like waveform, track length, title, etc.). Even playing some more obscure anime songs, I was able to find a few people who had played the same song. To close, I suggest playing the game in windowed mode as full-screen may induce tunnel vision and subsequent nausea (that, or I shouldn't have been playing at 4 in the morning).

Mixed Messages?

2008-02-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

*spoiler warning*

I saw Shigofumi EP6 last night and couldn't help wonder what exactly was the point of the whole thing. Was it to raise more awareness? Was it to suggest that people should lend a hand? Or was it a warning that people tend to snap? Or was it a host of other possibilities? I suppose it was probably all of the above. The gist of the episode was as follows:

Boy A in class Z is bullied. Boy A posts online for help. Boy B recognizes Boy A is from the same class. Boy B sells out Boy A to prevent himself from being bullied. Boy A dies. Boy B is bullied. Boy B snaps and stabs a bully, EoS.

Of all the things in there, possibly the best done part was the little sub-conversations on the message board, which capture the internet "spirit" (that's putting it euphemistically) quite well. So I ask again, what was the point of the whole thing? I can think of instances where the show does or fails to support any one of the mentioned ideas above. Maybe I don't understand people all at or Japanese customs, but you would think when someone is stabbing you with a compass, that would warrant getting others involved (be it teachers, parents, etc.).

T&A

2008-02-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

Not to be confused with "tits and ass," Mnemosyne is somewhat closer to "torture and ass." It's the anime equivalent of what I would imagine nip/tuck might be on FX (I say imagine because I've never seen more than the commercials). Unlike other more fan-service friendly shows, it almost seems like there's something you have to pay in compensation, namely plenty of awkwardly queasy (or at least tingling) scenes. I think one of the security guards best sums it up when he says, "biijin datta noni na..."

Animation boost

2008-02-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

If you watched EP4 of Aria: The Origination you may have noticed the considerable upgrade in animation it received (just look at the strands of hair). As to why, I'm not exactly sure but if this marks a new trend, it would be certainly most welcome. Aria, while consistent across all the series, generally feels a little on the cheap side and this episode along with the Arietta OVA make it blatantly clear. Although I'm not too optimistic, it can't hurt to dream a little.

One step forward, one step back

2008-02-06T22:39:00.001-08:00

In a move that makes me wonder if Japanese companies truly understand the US anime market, Bandai Visual announced the license and accelerated release of two new shows: Shigofumi and True Tears. Sounds all good right? Not until you look at the disc count and pricing. Currently, both 13EP series are scheduled using a seven-disc format, 2-2-2-2-2-2-1 (one being reverse) with each 2EP disc being priced at $39.99 and 1EP disc at $29.99 MRSP. Umm ya, did it not occur to anyone over at BV (not to be confused with Bandai Entertainment) that most 3-4EP discs retail at $29.99? Even with the usual online discounts, that's ridiculous for SD content. Unless it's an absolutely pristine encode, translation, and packed with real extras... no thank you.

This brings me to my next concern... US companies better hurry up and jump on the HD (be it BD or HD-DVD) wagon soon. I've been a long time anime supporter, since the days of buying 1-2EP VHS tapes for $25, but it seems awfully odd that to be spending money on SD content when raws are constantly available at 720p or higher...

New Shows

2008-01-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna try something new this time. Instead of creating a new post/series I'm gonna see if I can maintain a single one by constantly updating the time stamp.

Aria: The Origination
If you've continued to watch Aria up until now, most likely you've found something to like about the series. Given its subtitle, maybe they'll delve deeper into more of Aqua's history. Either way it's more of the stuff I've come to love.

Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino
Compared to the first series this one looks very cheap. The style isn't bad per se, but the simplistic design contributes to the already flimsy animation.

H2O: Footprints in the Sand
Harem with a blind kid... yeah. Throw in some abuse and discrimination and we might have something of a show.

Hatenkou Yugi
Hmm... dunno what to think. Apart from the pleasant and cheery personality of our heroine the show seemed completely devoid of anything interesting. I mean sure their personalities balance each other out, but do you really care what's going to happen; I think not.

Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de
With the way Hayate no Gotoku! is going, maybe another maid/butler series isn't such a bad thing. Although it may seem trivial, why in the world does the male lead have those annoying whisker/eyelash things? At least his sister does have a more "ebil" side as I don't think I can handle another too-goody-goody type of character.

Kimi ga Nozomu Eien: Next Season
I've pretty much forgotten all of the events from the first series. The only thing I remember is that I probably should hate Takayuki to a certain extent (much lesser than Makoto though). The show continues directly post-Haruka's hospitalization and but lacks any of the backstabbing and jealousy, yawn. I guess the ending spices things up a bit...

Persona: Trinity Soul
Best bet so far.

Shigofumi
I like the talking wand. Looks like its gonna end up like a chain letter type of thing.

Spice and Wolf
Is that gibberish I hear? Oh wait, that's just a horrid attempt at an English song. Setting that aside, this show might become more interesting if we get to see some of the other gods (if they exist). If not, I guess the attractive designs (and I'm not talking Hora) might hold me over.

True Tears
One of the most adorable endings in recent memory solely because of the chickens leading the parade. I guess it's a good thing Isurugi is such a weird one (like a lesser Haruhi) otherwise I wouldn't find myself really paying attention to what she says. I'm guessing Hiromi also has some issues surrounding her but those seem really bland in comparison. Hurray for little CG people.

Votoms: Pailsen Files
Retro looking and not as cool as I remembered. Maybe once we get to see the Votoms doing something other than being canon fodder that'll change.

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Extreme eh? It does seem a bit more hyper than the last season but I think I'm starting to become a little numb to the entire series. They need to change it up with some mini arcs (anything with continuity).

A World of Difference

2008-01-24T03:12:00.000-08:00

As hinted before, the Radeon 3850 upgrade was meant to accompany a new display, that being the 24" Samsung Syncmaster 245T. Doing some math, 1920x1200 offers roughly 75% more space than 1280x1024; that's a pretty big difference. Looking from afar, 24" doesn't seem like very much (I had also been staring at my 24" T-square prior) until you actually sit in front of it. OMG, the thing is huge! Even after more than a week of use, I still can't help but admire how impressive the thing looks; although after years of using a 17", it does seem a little awkward having to scan my eyes a little.

Without a hardware calibrator, most of my tuning came from eying various things, using DisplayMate, and some tricks involving Photoshop. Generally speaking the whole thing seemed a bit bright (even at zero brightness) and I also turned down the saturation a teeny bit (the reds and greens were like, wow). Adjusting the gamma setting also helped a bit in increasing the range of grays, which are very neutral compared to other LCDs. Actually, the monitor sports just about every kind of control so bypassing any software is entirely possible if you have a calibrator.

There are a few blemishes, namely a stuck green-subpixel and a lesser stuck red-subpixel (this one turns off sometimes depending on the color), but no real dead pixels. Also, when I making my adjustments, I noticed at certain settings I would get some pixel twinkling, as if it was having a hard time maintaining a certain color.

Given that I don't have my collection of DVDs at hand, I went out and picked up Talledega Nights (which also conveniently hit $10) to see how SD video looked. Not as bad as I would have imagined. In fact, if I just sit like two or three feet away, it looks pretty good. Of course firing up some 720p Gundam 00 makes a striking difference. The wide gamut is also very very nice and found myself noticing some colors I otherwise never saw before in Guild Wars. However, as noted by the Xbit Labs review, RTC errors are fairly high and I had no trouble noticing them (they look a white "ghost"). Until the school semester starts next week, I won't have much to say about how it fares with work but undoubtedly the extra real estate will be much appreciated.

Crysis 1.1 + Radeon 3850

2008-01-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess you could say the inevitable happened. Actually, in preparation for a 24" LCD upgrade (which should be here by now, stupid UPS), I decided on Diamond Multimedia's (yes, they're back) Radeon 3850 512MB to power it. Why the 3850? Because it's probably the best bang for your buck video card right now (apart from the higher priced 8800GT) and I was still somewhat uncertain if my 400w PSU would be enough. In the end, it actually runs cooler than my old overclocked 7800GT and eats less power too.

Please keep in mind that the GPU time-demo numbers are only representative of a fly-by with sound and do not include any player interaction. The CPU time-demo is actually a little more representative of combat as it has the character shooting rockets into destructible environments (high & medium). To the numbers:

Athlon X2 3800+ @ 2.4
ASUS A8N-E (939)
2x1GB OCZ Platinum rev.2 DDR400 (2-3-2-5)
Diamond Radeon 3850 512MB (stock)
X-Fi XtremeMusic
Windows Xp Pro. SP3 RC

GPU timedemo
1280x1024, DX9, High = 27.77 FPS (10.99 min, 32.29 max)
1280x1024, DX9, Medium = 45.02 FPS (25.63 min, 62.25 max)
1280x1024, DX9, Low = 66.79 FPS (39.98 min, 91.10 max)

CPU timedemo
1280x1024, DX9, High = 25.60 FPS (3.50 min, 33.13 max)
1280x1024, DX9, Medium = 39.21 FPS (17.45 min, 64.44 max)
1280x1024, DX9, Low = 83.71 FPS (59.32 min, 99.93 max)

Please note that the difference between "high" & "medium" physics actually did not affect the FPS at all. Anyway, I settled on using all "high" except "medium" shadows, which adds ~3 FPS. Oh I finished Delta almost twice since it was so fun, plus, "high" shaders makes the game look much much better.

Myself; Yourself

2008-01-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

Right on the heels of School Days is another drama anime about them crazy teenagers. Yep, almost every one of the main characters either comes from a broken family or is twisted in some way, shape, or form. In one case, the perpetrator really never gets punished aside from a little karma. While the ending does provide some relief in that people can move forward, when I look back at the series as a whole, it was somewhat depressing. Heck, they even managed to fit a teeny 10 years after epilogue (always a plus) and boy, that teacher still looks hot. Also, while the animation wasn't stellar, it was consistent to an acceptable degree. In the end, it's the kind of show that comes and goes, if only because you don't want to remember it.

Evangelion 1.0: You Are Not Alone

2008-01-08T09:18:00.000-08:00

Keep in mind that these opinions are solely based on the recently released camera raw (I'm sure you can find it some where...).

Animation: It's a fairly hard judge given the quality of the raw, but I'm fairly impressed compared to the last time I've seen a camera anything (we're talking years ago). The new scenes can be broken down into a few categories: full CG motion graphics, motion graphic overlays, CG+animation, full animation both new and redrawn. For the most part, the scenes are interspersed so they're never more than a few seconds long with a heavier dose of new stuff appearing in the final half hour or so. If you're like me and have probably gone through EVA several times now, you'll find that picking out the new stuff and additional flourishes very easy. As usual, my biggest concern when dealing with CG is the composting and it's really a tough call given the lack of clarity. If anything, it's nothing revolutionary and at times probably a little more on the stiff side (granted train, tractor, building, machinery isn't exactly something to be natural...). Unsurprisingly, the 5th Angel lends itself (given the nature of its design) best to the new CG stuff and there are some moments I'd love to see again in higher definition. In general, the editing is much better and the movie does a great job not using the exact footage more once. As usual, the series is primarily dated by clothing (see Touji and Misato) but thankfully nothing too serious.

*SPOILERS*

Retelling: Honestly, there's not that much new in this first movie. The flashback post battle we're all so fond of is gone and now moves in linear fashion. At first the pacing seemed a bit fast and it took me about 30 minutes before getting totally accustomed. Other main points include Misato showing Shinji Lilith (now with a new mask) to convince him of their cause. Karou is also awakened in the final minutes near what seems to by another Lilith (or was that in Dogma?). The battle with the 5th Angel has some little nuances but for the most part, I consider these more as stylistic choices (like the Angels melting into a primordial soup). Some things have been said about Shinji being re-characterized as less indecisive but IMO, it's the result more or less of direct story telling that makes it blatantly clear what's going inside his head and the decisions he comes to. Again, I can't really re illiterate it enough, it's about 97% the same show.

Favorites: As I hinted, the 5th Angel payoff is nice as any time there's a build to climax, I welcome it wholeheartedly. I particularly like the remodeled "drill," morphing (albeit simplistic), and some of the missile fire camera angles. In the fight with the 3rd Angel, the reconstruction of 01's wrist is more organic now. Watching the redone synchronization motion graphics is pretty nice along with the power generating (composited with animation) ones. Dropping missles on the 3rd Angel is pretty funny too.

Random: Lots of rainbows. What, no Ritsuko in the dive suit? Did they really need to fan-service Rei? Was that a chair lift Ritsuko and Misato were riding on? The little ladder that drops from 01's entry plug does little to convince me how Touji and Co. get in. Did Shinji really go to the mountains or was he dreaming in the red-light district? CG humans, no matter how small they are, can always be spotted. They must rebuild the suburbs of Tokyo-3 really really fast. I miss the OP.

Ah! Megami-sama: Tatakau Tsubasa

2008-01-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

... is a two-part special celebrating A!MG's 20th anniversary. It introduces Lind, a Valkyrie from heaven and is fairly "action-packed" throughout both episodes. Valkyries are essentially the white-wearing enforcers of heaven, something you might have caught a glimpse of in the movie IIRC. Personally I find stuff like this (delving into the workings of heaven or hell) far more entertaining than the usual drab surrounding Keiichi and the main goddesses. The story picks up sometime after TV season two (we see Skuld and her egg) so don't expect anything in the way of character introductions (duh, its two EPs). The animation is top-notch and there's little to complain about; just wish the pacing would be always this tight.

Macross Frontier EP1

2007-12-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

I wasn't particularly fond about Macross Zero, which dropped the more large scale conflict, for a more personal tale (well at least smaller). From the introductory monologue and it's Frontier nomenclature, the show captures more of the inter-space exploration and colony-vibe present in earlier series. Let's just say nothing gets the blood running faster than the typical tale of invasion.

There's also plenty of nods to previous series, be it Isamu's hand motion to the now-mainstream deployment of the unmanned Ghost fighter. I had hoped some form of the YF-19's inverted wing would be retained (given the continuity post-7) in the YF-25, but armored, the thing feels more like something from Macross 2 (not bad per se).

CG generally works well for Macross Frontier given how much of it is constantly used (be it signs, billboards, motion graphics, etc.) so it never feels as if, "k, now it's a full CG sequence." For the most part, they seem of equivalent quality to Zero, but only time will tell how the time pressures of TV scheduling affect overall production quality.

The weak link in it all seems to be the character designs, which ranged from "meh" (just about everyone) to "beh" (the green haired person). There's a nice sharp edge to Cheryl's assistant but that's about it. Also, the selective use of soft coloring is not a style I really enjoy (see Cheryl in the plane at the beginning). Either use it more often or drop it altogether.

My ears are bleeding

2007-12-12T23:36:00.000-08:00

*points to Genshiken 2 EP10* For the love of god, it shouldn't be that hard to hire someone with a decent English accent. Whoever does the R1 release should have a special re-dub track ONLY for the "American" characters. And the butler thing... words escape me.

Cookie Crumbs

2007-12-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

T... t... tw... two weeks, just a little under two weeks till much needed break.

Oh, I picked up The Orange Box during Black Tuesday (a shopping sale near Thanksgiving time) and I've touched very little of it, which is probably a good thing. Thanks to HL2 motion sickness, I can play little over 40 minutes before nausea kicks in. For the most part I've stuck to Portal, which is very entertaining and short (already more than half way with what little time I've spent). Ironically, despite being the only game that doesn't induce motion sickness, I've left Team Fortress 2 mostly untouched, only firing it up to configure and run around an empty server; again, probably the smart thing.

Anime is still alive and kicking with only a few new shows on the must-watch list. Clannad, Genshiken 2, and Gundam OO make up the short list while Naruto and Bleach never really end. Hayate no Gotoku! has nearly fallen beyond repair and feels like a mish-mosh of random ideas that never gets anywhere. Sleeper favorites still includes Sky Girls, Minami-ke, and, surprise surprise, D.C. II. The rest is just time filler whenever I need a break from work.

Then there's Christmas shopping, which is like another HW assignment in itself...

Crysis SP demo

2007-11-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

This is a bit late considering that the retail version is already out. Originally, I thought about giving it a whirl but given the insanely taxing graphics, I thought about letting it pass until I put together a new rig. With all the raving reviews and the recent introductions of more affordable and well preforming GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon 3800 HD graphics cards, I was more than tempted. I thought at the very least I'd peek into how it ran on my current system before thinking more about it.

On my system (2.4 X2, 2 GB DDR400, 7800 GT, XpSp2) the most optimal settings I settled on was everything on "medium" (except for high sound, which is a non-factor) at 1024x768. With this I probably had frame rates in mid 20's for the most part with little to no stuttering. Of course, I did try full blown "high" settings at 1280x1024 but that resulted in a very pretty slide show. So what's the difference between high and medium? Normally I wouldn't call Gamespot exactly the greatest when it comes to PC news but they actually have one of the better Crysis performance guides I've seen thus far (along with Tweak Guides). If I were to summarize, the more obvious changes when going from high to medium were:

- reduced HDR (just look at the sun for a sec)
- reduced shadow clarity (not too big of a deal)
- lack of motion blur while turning (looks nice when on)
- less volumetric fog (doesn't look as thick)
- reduced texture quality (hardly an issue at my non-native resolution)

As far as physics and particle effects, despite my tendency to blow-up every vehicle in sight, I had trouble really pinpointing differences. I could destroy just about everything in medium regardless. The only thing I can say is stay away from any low setting at all costs; it looks absolutely plain not to mention you lose all physics/environment interactivity.

As for the first level, it was a heck of a lot of fun (I played once through on each difficulty: normal, hard, and delta). Ultimately, as my friend also noted, the stealth mechanic is almost too overpowered if you take your time (the downside is once you open fire, you have zero shield). Even on delta I had no trouble picking off my enemies without them getting a shot off. Of the suit abilities, strength seemed the most useless and hitting soldiers with barrels or objects is rather difficult. Grabbing a soldier is somewhat fun, especially as a human shield until you realize that the other enemies have no qualms about opening fire on their fellow soldier. Like Counter-Strike/Halo, tossing grenades is always a blast as you watch debris and bodies fly about. Some of the physics does feel off at times compared to HL2 but I wonder if that had anything to do with the medium physics setting. Still, demolishing a house, boat, or car leaves plenty of awe and destruction. I must say I was thoroughly impressed just how well motion blur was put to use (on nades, looking down the sight, head turning, etc.). I previously thought it was one of the more gimmicky ideas to come about, but Crysis makes amazing use of it along with HDR. Now who wants to take bets how long I'll last before getting a new video card?

Now, if they could always do that...

2007-11-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

Of all the possible episodes to put their animation energy into, they picked Naruto: Shippuuden EP33. Don't get me wrong, the episode was a very welcome breather (plus we got to see the older team Kurenai + Choji) but damn, I haven't seen such a polished looking EP of Naruto in a long time. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry about some of the earlier PoS animated episodes.

The last of them

2007-10-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

D.C. II
While most of the characters are new for this one, nearly all of them inherit some sort of design from the previous generation. The original banana-girl becomes the new girlfriend, the Kotori-like (name?) character is similar in looks and hobbies, while secondary characters like Sugiyama have mirroring roles. Nemu is absent--being replaced with two resembling and over adoring sisters. Of course there's a new banana loving robot too... yawn. If anything, I was happy to see that Sakura was one of the few hangovers and displayed an older more mature personality. The pink-headed girl is a welcome addition too since she tends to push people around, a necessity with wishy-wash characters.

Night Wizard
Generic game-based fantasy anime. I suppose it's better than risking anything that might be god-awful but it also makes for an easy drop target when time runs short. It's pleasing enough to look at, yet there's very little to latch on other than feeling sorry for Hajime and his constant struggle to go to school.

Shion no Ou
If Studio Deen's reputation hasn't fallen enough, they attempt to animate something like this. The character designs are very line heavy, detailed and bishoujo manga-like, which lends itself to lots of nitpicking. Whether it be face shapes, facial expressions or perspective shots, the whole look reeks of inconsistency. The show itself is a mix of shougi and murder/suspense but hasn't quite presented enough of the latter to be all that exciting.

Early drops go to Dragonaut (once I saw the CG... another Gonzo flop) and ef (sorry waaay too slow).

Crash and Burn

2007-10-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

If there ever was a series where someone got what he deserved, it would be School Days. The only annoying thing was that Makoto remained oblivious to the very end. As for everyone else involved, I suppose it was a stroke of bad luck. As a side note, it would've been even better had they decided to use red instead of black, after all, they showed a fair amount of gushing. LOL, pretty sure we won't be seeing a sequel to this one.

Cramming it all together

2007-10-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

LOL the repercussions from playing FFT were apparent this week. After two days with no sleep, I somehow managed yet the majority of midterms are coming next week. Also my trusty MX300 optical mouse finally decided to kick the bucket (wheel broke) the day before deadline and was replaced by a G5 gaming mouse (got it for $35 too :).

ef ~ Tale of Memories
Tenmon's music piqued my interest but the show turned out to be as drab as possible. Like many of its kind, the seriously slow pacing and eye-patch character fetish really do nothing for me. Too bad, because it seems like there was a lot of effort invested into the production.

Minami-ke
I like this one primarily because the relationship issues between the sisters are similar to problems one might expect in a normal household. Also, there's some really interesting use of camera angles that suggest a more active role of motion graphics in the direction apart from the now standard computer-based work flow. The mouths... I don't know what to say about them.

Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun
On first watch, I got this reverse Girls Bravo feeling. It's almost a complete role reversal where the female lead has a fear of men, yet they're all attracted to her (she's a succubus after all). As you might expect, this is where our male protagonist (with typical generic childhood ties) comes in to alleviate her phobia. The show took no time in dropping a clunker in animation with EP2 and while EP3 had a little bit of bounce back, I can't help but feel there's little to now substance beyond the pseudo-attractive characters designs (still trying to put my finger on where I've seen them). Compared to GB, it lacks in every category, primarily in the humor and insanity department (the threats Ninomiya's sister uses are just retarded).

On to things I love about recent anime. Serei no Moribito does what many anime often skimp on, using the last episode as a full epilogue (like Planetes, Godannar, Argentosoma, etc.), very much appreciated. I'm also enjoying very thoroughly the time jump in Gurren Lagann (it jumps 7 years a little past midway); I love seeing how characters change over time (plus Nia got her hair back ^_^).

Final Fantasy Tactics (PSOne vs PSP)

2007-10-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

I spent quite a few hours this weekend with the PSP version (and a teeny bit of refreshing with the original), probably more than I should have (almost finished it). Anyway, here's the breakdown for those still on the fence...

PROs
- New cutscenes (they look really nice and have good voice acting too, OP could use better compression -_-)
- Two new characters (not really special IMO)
- Two new classes (for those who want to grind some)
- Improved translation (there's now more stylistic flourishes and nuances, higher consistency)
- Cleaner text formatting (same font has been tweaked, IE quotes and can now display more characters/line, better kerning/tracking)
- Filtered graphics, high color (no dithering), wide-screen
- Ad-hoc Multi-player (haven't tried this)

CONs
- Slowdown (on almost anything but the very basic attacks and skills)
- Poor sound effects (no reverb, the more "complex" sounds are laughably bad)
- No analog stick movement for the world map

When it comes to slowdown, a lot of your mileage will vary depending on how much you remember the original (it really is blazingly fast). Actually I'm really irked just how bad the sound is (see transformation sequences). So much of the text has been improved that it really makes the game worth looking into. One can only imagine how many people would be unconditionally singing praise for this version had SE spent the proper resources to do a better port (as proven possible by Sony's own Popstation).

Filter Filter

2007-10-12T02:46:00.000-07:00

Genshiken 2
Yay, it's a direct continuation from where those Kujian EPs left off. The show remains virtually unchanged and that's a good thing. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed that they decided to go the "I want to publish a doujinshi" route (it's been covered in other anime) but I have all the faith in the world that the show will offer more insight and observations than others that have come before it.

Myself Yourself
... Chiyo-chan's (Aoi) voice is just annoying yet Muu (Shuu) is pretty refreshing in this kind of role. Actually, there's a slew of familiar voices in this show but when compared to the likes of Clannad, the dialogue feels very lacking and generic. About the only bright spot might be the character designs but even it lacks easy-on-eyes quality of say School Days. So you might guess that with all these comparisons to other anime, Myself Yourself just doesn't seem to do anything particularly well.

Rental Magica
If the looks didn't half-remind me of Gatekeepers, I'd prolly be sleeping in my chair. It's fantasy occult and while I've not watched many of those (they feel few and far between), this genre is seriously inept when comes to making something fresh *yawn*.

October Anime Season

2007-10-10T22:56:00.000-07:00

While better judgment would suggest that blogging right now isn't such a good idea (still got a site to do), having just woke up and still annoyed by one of my ongoing projects (a case where effort /= results and where projects goals are little out of scope), I need to give my brain a little down time.

Gundam 00
From the early screens, I wasn't particularly thrilled by the mecha design so I waited (just a little) before putting a priority on this one. At times, the show feels both fresh and old -- new, as generic mobile suits include more futuristic designs in Xenosaga style (same dude) while the Gundams are a little more "unorthodox" (rings more Stargazer-type design). Old, as the pilot suits are retro looking and primarily the Macross vibe I get from seeing that purple headed she-he looking character (his name escapes me). Actually, the whole collection of characters, while stylistically unified, seem to come from several different veins of anime. Luckily, being a showcase first episode, most of the Gundams are put to use and they move with more nimbleness than I would expect. Barring the Buster-type visor Gundam, my favorite design is actually their "mothership." There's a fairly decent OP from l~arc and a pretty drab ED from (do I care?)...

Clannad
Assuming you've seen Kanon and Air, you should pretty much realize what kind of show you're getting into with Clannad. So for the most part it remains to be seen what kind of story this will turn out to be (assuming you've not played the game either) and for me, that always takes a little time to work into. Until then, I'm content with the "smaller" eye designs, the good production values, and the humor they manage to inject into their characters. I enjoyed the onlooker ass-whupping camera angle very thoroughly.

Dragonaut
While I didn't exactly finish EP1 yet, I took a peak thanks to its Stellvia-inspired designs. Not exactly the most remarkably animated first episode, but if they can manage a similarly consistent level, they could do much worse. From the OP, I'm a little curious where the show will go -- mecha or super hero?

In the end with time short, I've already pre-axed many by simply visiting their official sites (lotsa retro-looking stuff these days). There's some series I definitely want to hit upon including the "real" sequel to Genshiken (those Kujibiki ones don't count) although I fear I'll begin hacking some current slow series (*cough* Baccano! > too less Gadd/Lua, too much Splot whining, too many animation issues, flashbacks, high-pitched Miria *cough* Mushiuta > so close to end but so boring) to make time for. Oh, and a warm farewell to Lucky Star, may there be a second season in the future (hopefully with that remix CD style for the OP :D~).

Kaleido Star: New Wings

2007-10-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

Barring some box repair (it got a little squashed), I blazed through season two in a few sittings. Hmm, what to say... for once I was happy a series began with two recaps because I did need some refreshing on the previous events (it being a direct continuation and all). The show is paced fairly well and there are plenty of appearances from those that could've been easily cut from the story. All of those appearances work well until start introducing some of the lesser side characters (*yawn*).

The core focus is between Sora, May, and Leon, but they should have began painting Leon in better light a little sooner. For the first half or so, Leon is rendered such the bad guy that he feels too one-dimensional and boring. With May's similar personality, the two new characters essentially drain much of the fun and interest out of the show. That's not to say it was extremely boring, far from it, but it could've been much stronger. As one would expect, things do take a turn for the better once some character circumstances are ironed out and much of the uncertainty put to rest.

Perhaps the weakest episode was the disappointing extra (an OVA I believe), which did little as an epilogue even though it continues directly from the series' end. I'm not even sure why Rosetta was chosen (if there's ever another sequel) as her character, despite being more developed than season one, still felt minor and insignificant. In the end, the series is much like the first, predominantly driven by Sora's personality and determination. When she's on, the show flies and shines but when she's in the dumps, it gets kind of boring, nothing too surprising... (might be good to revisit my season one comments)

More ODEX crap

2007-09-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

Normally I'd be sleeping by now, but I stumbled upon this Anime News Network link suspecting that ODEX (a "legitimate" Singapore anime company) is ripping off a.f.k's subs for their own release of haruhi. Following the links around, apparently this isn't the first time and in the past, the company admitted to and stated that it would try to right wrongs. LOL, I guess that didn't last very long. Of course if you remember my short stint with their Seed Destiny DVDs (which I now buy Bandai's R1s), their video encodes were pretty much crap. Just another reason why they'll die a horrible horrible death eventually (apparently they're also going after Singaporeans for d/ling anime).

Overloaded

2007-09-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

Looks like I finally bit off more than I can chew. What seemed like a temporary increase in workload due to other circumstances has actually become quite permanent... uh oh. As usual, this means a change in mindset where prioritizing certain classes over others become critical (not to mention the inherent hit to the quality of work). Just gotta tough it out for this "last" semester...

A few comments on some finished anime, namely Claymore and Kaze No Stigma, both ending essentially at midpoints. Claymore resolves Clare's vengeance towards Priscilla, although nothing is done about the big three kakkuseisha (sp? Also, it's prolly extremely close to the manga now). Kaze fully depicts what actually happened to Tsuo Rin but both Lapis and Burnheart escape unscathed so nothing came to an end either. Speaking of which, Gonzo's track record for animation is at an all time low with both Kaze and Romeo x Juliet having more than their fair share of poorly animated episodes.

Another series coming to an end is Serei no Morbito, which is sad because its such an awesome show. Honestly I should've talked about it a little more, but its certainly something not to be missed. One of the best things is how the battles (few and far between) all have this weight akin to what we saw in the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs and that's quite an accomplishment.

Rebuild of Evangelion

2007-09-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

So it's been just about two weeks since the first movie (of four) hit Japanese theaters. So when are we going to see it stateside? Given the rising popularity/manga of anime in the US, a limited subtitle only theater release would actually work to some extent. That said, I find it funny that you can't even watch the trailers on the official site (go YouTube it) because they block non-Japanese addresses. Me want to see :(

Flesh tones

2007-09-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, before I forget, at times I thought the flesh tones in TSR (see Sagara) seemed really weird. Upon further inspection, I think it was probably done intentionally to reflect the interior lighting of TDD-1 (a submarine). But then there's the OP for the 3rd season of OVAs for marimite, where the flesh tones seem really weird too (see Yumi), but I can't think of a reason for that one...

Full Metal Panic!: TSR Vol. 1-4

2007-09-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

As I continue to wait and see what US anime studios plan on doing with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, my DVD purchases have slowly dwindled down (GSD is the only release I follow and I'll pick up the Kaleido Star S2 thin-pak soon). But being summer and all, I thought I'd be kinda fun to revisit an excellent series in recent memory. I'll be talking more about the release itself rather than the show, it is fairly "old" anyway (2005).

Video
Let's say Funimation ranks very low on my list of studios when it comes to good video encoding. Having had to endure the sub par encoding for hagaren and Kiddy Grade, I'd pretty much given up buying anything from the company unless absolutely necessary. Being more of a joint release with Kadokawa, I had hope things would change; alas, I was wrong. Luckily it seems Kadokawa moved to Bandai for their haruhi release, so there may be hope still. Like most Funi releases, they never make full use of the extra space of a DVD-9. Average bit rates hover around the mid 6's but should be more in the 7's for such a animation intense show. The most noticeable offender is the OP where the line crawl becomes emphasized as the low-bitrate starts to make things a little rough around the edges. There's parts where it comes close to breaking up (see Sagara in AS before the cut to TDD-1). These problems are reduced in the textless OP but was that due to better encoding or the absence of credits (we all know text requires additional bitrate to look good, especially scrolling text)? The show on the other hand looks decent but trouble areas continue to be in CG areas like ECS effects (see helicopters), low-lighting areas such as the TDD-1 bridge, and when subtle glow is used (from monitors, displays, sun). Given how I've watched the majority of my DVDs in front of a monitor and seen the evolution of various modern video codecs, I may be just overly sensitive, but it bugs me nonetheless.

Story
It's still an excellent show by all means. There are elements ranging from slapstick humor, emotional introversion, to full-on mecha combat. The TV-14 rating (for the R1) is there for a reason; there's some pretty graphic violence and partial nudity (more of the former). Not that it really matters any more (man, I'm feeling old), but I like a good serious show over something half-assed unless it's explicitly a comedic piece. That said, while fumoffu was a comedic detour, this series returns to the more serious nature of dealing with Black Technology and the missions Mithril has to undertake.

Extras
There's a fair amount of stuff here. Apart from the textless OP/ED, there's audio commentary from the Japanese VAs for all 13 EPs, the bonus OVA, two video documentaries (JDF and about "light novels"), followed by one really long seven-part location hunt in Hong Kong (commented on by both Shouji Gatou, creator and Yasuhiro Takemoto, director).

I like episode commentaries, especially ones that give insight into the production aspect of things. These for the most part were ramblings by the VAs, at times completely off-topic, yet by no means boring as you do get a hint at the personalities behind the characters. I'm surprised they had the VA who played Leonard comment for two episodes given how small his part was in the entire series. That said, the VAs for Sagara and Kaname let loose for the most part, ranging from all sorts of naughty topics to more work-related ones (like playing a young character). Then there were the commentaries from Mao and Weber's VAs, where both seemed more glued to watching the show, than making any real comments. It was quite interesting to hear just how many of them had actually watched the show and Weber's attention to detail was pretty amazing.

More of the production commentary was found in the Hong Kong scouting trip. While the video was fairly bland for the most part (just a lot of walking around), both the creator and director made a more conscious effort to talk about the current EPs rather than random things they saw (doggie litter box, school girls). Although when they did move from talking about the show itself, it was often to talk about what they were doing at a particular location, like looking for a park for Sousuke to brood in and places where they could stage AS action reasonably realistically. There was also a particularly interesting comment from the director about how he admired Tezuka-san for creating Atom Boy because were it not for him, who knows what Japan's robot industry (not to mention mecha anime) would be today. As for me, I found those escalators really interesting, I mean you usually don't think of escalators being outside do you?

Voice Acting 101

2007-08-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's no secret I rarely watch dubbed anime (can't even remember the last time), yet somehow I find it awkward that it's something THAT difficult to do decently. Here are my steps to good anime dubbing:

1. as a viewer and VA, ignore the whole set in Japan/XX so they should be speaking Japanese/XX notion. The Japanese do it themselves when portraying other countries too (unless they attempt Engrish).

2. as a VA, the MOST important thing is to use English that sounds like normal English. Nothing forced, just plain English, don't even bother with accents or anything. If you can get that down, I'll overlook any minor fluidity edits to the script or what not.

3. if you can get #2 down (where 99% of all anime VAs fail), then attempt to mimic the original characters accent/tone. Good VAs sound like they speak fluent English, the best VAs sound like they speak fluent English in the voice of their choice.

That's it, why is it so hard?

Missing August

2007-08-27T03:25:00.000-07:00

Whew, thought I might bypass blogging for the month of August. Between wrapping up summer classes, the new anime season, GW:EN, and Granado Espada, things have been a little hectic. Anyway, here's the rundown:

The anime front continues to be strong thanks to existing series: Claymore continues to be extremely enjoyable despite nearing the end while Hayate no Gotoku! and Lucky Star have more or less fallen into stride, although a little less interesting, both still very entertaining. Devil May Cry became more or less what I feared, unable to maintain its animation and failing to develop a longer story arc fast enough. Naruto has remained particularly gripping with the battle between Chiyo/Sakura and Sasori while Bleach seems intent in interjecting god-awful fillers to pad things (meh). Xenoglossia has its moments from time to time, but it's a one of the weaker Sunrise series in recent memory.

There have been some surprises too, particularly Sky Girls. Honestly, the show could be even stronger had it not seemed that the skimpy "cat girl" skin suits were for fan service. I'm actually enjoying how they're gradually explaining and getting everyone along with the technology introduced, a far cry from the "what the hell" OVA. The first EP of Mushi-Uta certainly piqued my interest (nice designs), but until the better known group ramps up, there's little to be said. Baccano! falls into a similar category but for whatever I've yet to get myself to watch beyond EP1.

Then came Granado Espada, which became completely free to play starting last week. Being from Ragnarok Online heritage, I immediately gave it a whirl. The group combat is fairly fast-paced yet still feels a tad hands off ("real-time" is GW's greatest strength) but overall, I was more hooked than my stint with the turd that was Lineage 2. What wasn't so hot was the slew text and formatting errors, reminiscent of early iRO. I'm not sure if it has something to do with injecting English text into what was originally Korean, but it adds a very very thick layer of unpolish (even the loader says "prepaing"), sad really. For the time being I'll prolly play it whenever I need downtime from GW, it's free afterall.

To top it off, this weekend was the Guild Wars: Eye of the North preview event, which was a great deal of fun. There's a reason I continue to enjoy GW, it always feels so streamlined; no bloat, just do the thing you want to do. The way ANET continues to use quirky yet funny dialogue and mini-games is a great diversion from the usual questing (and now dungeon crawling). If there's anything that bugged me, it was the lack of additional storage. It really sucks to be on the third level of a dungeon and already have no room to pick up drops. Then there's the slew of PvE only skills, so many I didn't even have time to review along with the usual balanced PvE/PvP skills and you've got plenty to come back to.

Code Geass 24+25 / More new shows

2007-07-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

*spoiler alert*

So the show pretty much remains open, nothing revealed, nothing answered (apart from hard confirmation of a sequel). What does happen? Well, clean the slate for next season to some extent. Cornelia is gone, Darton is gone, Jeremiah is gone (maybe), C2 is gone (doubtful), The Black Knights are about finished, Suzaku and Karen know LeLouch is Zero, Chigusa regains her memories, and V2 captures Nanari (I guess you could call it that). A few things here and there without any real advancement in the plot line except that Queen Marianne (Lulu's mother) knew that her assassination was imminent. Certainly an entertaining watch with some pretty slick animation at times, but it's going to be another long wait until next season. The OP song/animation is pretty crap though.

Zero no Tsukaima 2
A direct continuation of our fan-service/fantasy comedy adventure. OP song was a little grating at first, but it's getting better. Very cute ED though.

Zombie Loan
Hmmm, it's only a matter of time before the animation really tanks (Studio Deen) but since it wasn't good from the get-go, does it really matter? Has a Dears look to it yet the story is about zombie hunters and ridding the world of rogue zombies. Nothing in the way of truly interesting story elements or characters, just a mish-mash of various things.

New Shows!

2007-07-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Devil May Cry
Mad House/Vampire Hunter D style. Doesn't seem to be following any real storyline, game or otherwise, at this point but that's typical of most intro episodes. Nice instrumental OP song but banks more on animation quality than anything (already a slight drop in EP4).

School Days
Looks like a visual cross between Azumanga Daioh (Saionji) and To Heart (Kotonoha). Story-wise, it's your typical run of the mill love triangle complete with indecisive male lead. Eye candy but nothing else.

Code-E
Very retro looking style with an interesting premise about a girl who makes surrounding electronics go haywire. I'm more impressed by the little gadgets at school, it's like a semi-futuristic yet realistic setting.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
Direct continuation of the first series set X years after (I already forgot). First EP is a nice recap of everything and tells you probably all the secrets of the first series (good for people like me who stopped watching). Hopefully they won't keep retelling the same story over and over from different PoVs, that's what turned me off in the first place.

Umisho
Fanservice harem anime about swimming. I guess they'll go compete sooner or later but this is more comedy oriented. Not too fond of the style.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Favorite show thus far. Typical school comedy with some unique characters: overly pessimistic teacher (hence the title), unrealistically optimistic student (a little annoying at first), OCD student (she blends a cake just to evenly distribute it), recluse student, stalker student, etc. Just good fun overall; lotsa word/name puns.