Alberenza's reviews

[Deleted]

Hey guys I thought I'd just move these over from my site.

Hello, as you may know I am someone who often has much to say about various works of fiction, mainly of the anime department. Every now and then I just want to write my thoughts down on them, and there cant really be a better way to do that then via a review.
Often times I wont give a score, some times I will, mainly because I want to say what I think about them, which wont always necessarily be a recommendation or disparagement. I wont limit my reviews to specific genres, but it will mostly be on anime and games with stories, as I never really find anything interesting to think about other than that. Also,

SPOILER WARNING.

I always want to talk about everything, and I really dont want to dance around the issues so dont read the review if you dont want spoilers of specific shows.

With that said, lets start today with Angel beats. I also want to talk about Future Diary, (Mirai Nikki) later, because I have a lot of things to say about that particular anime.

Angel beats is a 13 episode school anime (with an extra OVA which I haven't seen) about dead people.
After the delightful opening, we see series protagonist Otonashi (I will probably get spellings wrong) wake up with a case of amnesia, geez that old trope. OOOh dear, But oh well, it doesn't bother me as much as it does some unappeasable fanatics out there. Anyway its a pretty serious case because he doesn't remember anything but his name after some prodding and how to speak, but he meats a girl named Yurippie as soon as he wakes up, a cute school girl aiming a sniper rifle against another school girl's (Who oddly wears a different school uniform despite being in the same school's) head from behind some bushes.
So Yuri basically tells otonashi that he is dead, based on evidence that she is dead and thus so must he be. She then pretty much tells him to join her fight against god because she had a crap life.
He decides to ignore her and go say hi to the school girl who is about to get her brains blown out, wear upon series 'antagionist' (the closest thing to antagionist, really) Angel decides to stab the poor Bas**** through the test to prove to him that he is dead. After that, he wakes up to discover that he cannot die and gets splattered in other ways that would kill someone normally in funny manners. He eventually joins the ever changing name of a group of people (although usual battlefront gets worked in) within the school who are like protesters blaming god for all their problems, and this Angel character is supposedly his emissary, trying to return them to the flow so that they will be reincarnated into something that they dont know about. The idea of becoming 'a water flea' in the next life is something the battlefront fears, thus why they want to remain in this afterlife, and at the same time only speculation on their part which reminds me of lord of the flies, kids thinking of something that may or may not exist.
This first episode makes more sense than I'd have you lead to believe, although in retrospect I wish they had introduced everyone better.
Regardless instead of writing a synopsis let me just say that the story is very short, and doesn't outstay it's welcome. It makes you laugh at the very least at how cliche some of it is, and it may make you cry or at least have a strange feeling in your chest, warm and fuzzy or sickly depending on your tastes.
The idea behind people being dead and fighting because they blame god for giving them unfulfilled lives is certainly an interesting one, and it uses typical anime cliches to convey a message that really isn't at all cliche. There isn't the typical story structure of a dilema that must be overcome, there is rarely a tense feeling that the heroes may fail because being dead, all they can really do is take heavy abuse and eventually get right back up in this strange afterlife, Angel simply having a few cooler weapons.
The series focuses around several characters, each one of them having a dream that they were simply unable to finish in their own life despite being capable and willing, simply because they were unlucky enough to become hospitalized or spat upon by life in some other sense, dieing before they could achieve their own purpose. It is due to this that they turn up in this school environment, populated by the hilariously termed 'NPCs' who are simply there to make the restless souls feel at home in an environment that makes them feel happy, because many people in their situation never had a fulfilling childhood. The series plays up to this quite well, most of the early episodes are mostly just the characters dicking around, they have to misbehave in class to prevent being caught in the flow and reincarnated, termed 'obliteration' and they make up ludicrous plans to beat Angel to a pulp. Some are pretty cruel, like trying to destroy her reputation among the NPCs as a perfect student.
Before long however, characters explain their backstories normally in their last episode to otonashi, and obliterating themselves when they realise they have purpose, such as a pop singer realising that all she needs in life is to be able to play despite the fact that she was rendered unable to play her guitar due to an accident, dieing slowly and lovelessly in a hospital bed... but then disappearing. Each character is very hastily explained, but I cant help but feel moved. I'm a sap, really. Even characters I hated (Looking at you, Yui) were characters that made me cry when they decided to pass on. Yui died when one of the males came up to her and helped her pass on, she wanted a husband but died before that, so before she was obliterated the two made a make believe story over how they meat and how they go around the world together and live really happily... before leaving forever... jeez you know I actually tear up as I write this part just from thinking of it I'm sorry.
Back to business, as time goes on the viewer and Otonashi begin to realise that fighting against obliteration really isn't the ultimate goal, and Angel was simply a human just like them who wanted to help them pass on rather than some evil emissary sent from an uncaring god. This is lost on Yuri who got seriously depressed that her battlefront began to crumble.
The main message of the series that otonashi learns upon regaining his memories is that every life has some degree of worth even if they never actually fulfilled what they wanted to. Otonashi learnt that he wanted to become a doctor after years of living a meaningless life, his sick sister being his only ray of light before she died, and slowly died before he could do anything about it. In his last moments of being stranded in a train wreck, he signed a document to donate his organs. Upon remembering this, he realised that he helped save some lives despite not doing what he wanted to with his life.
This was the same for all the characters in some ways, and I actually thought that if this god actually was an actual person in the angel beats universe then he was a pretty stand up guy, allowing people who hate his ways to have a happy school childhood for a pretty long time as he let themselves realise that they simply needed to let go of the bagage and return to the flow. It's a notion thats so sad and yet oddly uplifting... and the title 'Angel Beats' also reflects this paragraph mostly, and for this I wont bother to reveal why this is the case in specific detail. I well up again so lets get right down to the complaints.

On the subject of god, I saw him as an impatient chap towards the end of the series. If he wanted people to work things out at his own pace, he probably shouldn't have sent unbeatable black demons to obliterate everyone towards the end of the series. Although, to be fair, It was some other chap doing that but it seemed really unnecessary, I dont remember anything resembling motivation from this person other than... kill everyone? It has been a little while since I saw the series but normally I'm pretty good at remembering stories from years ago so either I have a blank spot for Angel Beats, or, more likely as one would say who wants to keep his pride in tact, that a lot of important stuff that was supposed to impact me and add to the plot, well, didn't as you can plainly see.

Some of the characters were a little TOO cliche, one short brainy twat kept insisting that everyone call him Christ and boasting at his ability to use a computer and I can swear that is all he does, and unlike other characters who I found annoying (looking at you, Yui. Always) he never got a touching backstory. I get the impression that any human character should have a back story and be relevant to the plot, every other character would be better off as a helpful NPC, or that they should simply work the plot without them. It would remove a lot of the waffle and at the same time half the series, most likely.
They can make weapons out of anything if they know vaguely how it works, which is ok, I can suspend my disbelief on that because it's an after life all of what they see probably isn't even real anyway. But then they explain Angels powers, not tools, powers, by using this same principle that a computer in her bedroom can power her up wirelessly as if shes a robot with functions, which works while she's ambiguous and may be working for god, but not as a human using the same principles of everyone else. No one knows how to make stuff like that, and a school girl definitely wouldn't, and 'god' is arguably a presence that may or may not, but probably does not considering he doesn't really interfere (or he doesn't want to) exist. (Just like the real god. Cleaver. Also, sorry) This is basically a shallow plot device, and it also renders the underground weapons factory moot when the characters should be able to make the weapons themselves out of anything with basic instruction, this is never seen, but that would make more sense but maybe I'm just wishing for a show closer to FMA. *SIGH* I just had to mention that didn't I?

My biggest complaint, and at the same time my smallest, or it may even be something positive about the show depending on how you look at it, its a complicated one thats pretty specific to me.
Sometimes I get a feeling of De-ja-vu or have a strange dream or something else that makes me wonder if what I'm seeing is real or not. For instance after the show I had a dream where the main characters after becoming obliterated found themselves in a giant checkered, empty bathtub and had to individually and independently open up the plug hole and jump into the raging green waters. Everyone jumped in one by one, dieing and returning to the flow and me with otonashi's view point jumped in and then there I was, in this green haze that was oddly extremely soothing and very dream like, it wasn't nearly as rapid as it had looked while viewing it, and I saw Otonashi who looked dead but calm drift around the corner as the dream ended.
Ok, so this is supposed to be a review not a dream sharing passage, but I think the dream represents the series quite well and I'll let you take what you will. When I woke up I felt pretty terrified and I had no idea if I was dreaming or whatever... it's one of those strange experiences that made me think heavily. Any work of fiction that makes me scared of it's message, while at the same time sort of agreeing with it, is something that I see as a positive in retrospect. From a complaint standpoint the series in this sense provided a very surreal and unique experience for me, and it was jarring, it made me appreciate the series less in some strange way, caring less about what it actually was or if any of it was even intentional. At the end of the day it's just an anime about dead school kids with some laughs, cries, and incredibly cliched characters. Whatever you take from the series, as with anything, is really just dependent on you crazed mind really...

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Future Diary review.

Future Diary (Mirai Nikki in japan) is a 26 episode anime plus an extra OVA about a survival game where people use diaries that can predict the future in order to kill each other and become god.
The series has a very interesting set up and some compare it to death note. I think that's cute, death note picks out better competitors for it's niche from between it's teeth every morning. But that doesn't mean to say that the show doesn't have it's own merits, but by no means should it be compared to death note.
Future Diary is a show that has interesting characters and dynamics that really break away from what you see in average media, every character is each others enemy and there are no true allies. Whatever complaint you have for the show, it cannot be faulted for being unoriginal.

Yukiteru Amano is a school kid who is incredibly anti social, mainly because he's an unlikeable wuss, who writes down everything he observes around him in a diary on his cell phone. He has no real friends so he makes up an imaginary friend, Deus Ex Machina, who is the god of time and space and his assistant Murmur.
Deus grants Yuki a future diary, this allows the diary on his phone to update on events that are going to happen in the future, which can easily be changed if the diary owner decides to do something else. I find that refreshing compared to 'the unavoidable prophecy' thing other media portrays.
Yukiteru reacts to this with confusion, then happiness as he starts to abuse it for a day. until soon he reads an entry foretelling his own death and a 'dead end' reading.
As the time quickly approaches, before leaving school he is approached by popular girl Yuno Gasai, who has a future diary like him, openly expressing her love for him. She helps Yuki fend off the attacker, another Diary owner, and upon breaking his future diary, end his life because the diary represents their future.
Deus then feels that he should probably explain the rules, first off he is anything but imaginary, and tells everyone that the diary owners are a group of 12 who must fight it out, the winner becoming his successor, because it turns out god can die of old age.

Now, as I said I like this set up. At first it's villain of the week ordeal where Yuki and Yuno fend off the other diary owners, having code names between 1-12 to represent their place in the game, Yuki and Yuno are for instance first and second, and third is killed in the first episode.
I feel this could have been done better, after all some of the of the diary owners met earlier on never actually add anything to the story other than to fill up their villainous role, and die in the episode they are introduced.
When Yuki and Yuno aren't fending off attacks, we see scenes of their interesting relationship. Yuno falls into the 'Yandere' archetype, she is so madly in love for Yuki that it boarders on the psychotic and it's simply very disturbing. Yuno is a character who I personally love to hate, shes attractive and interesting, you never know if she really loves Yuki in the normal sense (because it might be in the sense one might love a puppet that they can have sex with) or if she simply wants an excuse to cut people up, and what is clear is that she doesn't want Yuki to have friends, which ironically he starts obtaining after years of isolation.
Yuki himself is one of the most indecisive, stupid pricks I have ever encountered- but the series doesn't simply make this up so that Yuno gets more screen time, because she states often that Yuki will have to kill her when it's just the two of them, but she doesn't mind. Yuki switches between convincing himself that he'll just use Yuno, to hating her, to loving her, but one thing that's apparent is that he cannot do the survival game alone because he is so useless by himself. He needs Yuno. His character makes sense, it was done on purpose, and I honestly think that we are supposed to hate the main characters which may put people off this show.
At first Yuki seems to be the only normal one out of 11 other psychotics, but it becomes apparent that he is so insecure by the end of the series that anything Yuno tells him he believes and he'll kill the people trying to help him in blind terror. He's one of the worst of the lot.
At one point in the series I cried because Yuki and Yuno SUCCEEDED AND SURVIVED which afterwards I thought was fu**ed up. 7th was two people, a couple who during the previous two episodes you learn about, and they were funny, not really psychotic, and most of all genuinely loved each other. Past that, if they won they counted as one player so they could both be god. Love couples like them are conman just about everywhere but after getting used to Future Diarie's relation ship between it's leads, you really felt the impact of 7th's actual love. Seriously, I bawled my eyes out and whimpered, cursing Yuki and Yuno for surviving and wishing that 7th had one and I wish I was making that up. 8th is also a character who only wanted to be god for her orphans, and various other characters like Minnine pretty much were better candidates.
What I find interesting is that Yuki and Yuno are actually the two characters favored by Deus and Murmur respectively, neither ever do anything to interfere (except at the end of the series) but they are also the ones who will clearly win because they are the protagonists. Deus had seen nothing to back up why he would support Yuki, but he supports him anyway pretty much from the outset.
Deus is originally thought to be imaginary, which makes me wonder if a god like deus exists because people believe in him. Like a god that rules us was created from our own mind and now we're facing the consequences with this insane survival game strangely set in japan. This is a series that made me think about many issues such as the truth of gods, how a protagonist can be used, how favorites win and what love truly is, for Yuno towards the end of the series treats Yuki like someone she can simply replace over and over again until she gets it right and eventually becomes terrified when she realises what a twisted person she has become.
Also, time travel, I like time travel and this has unique and bold mechanics that I haven't seen before.

But now the complaints. I could point out some nitpicks but this has been going on for a while, so lets just stick with the big one- the series has a nasty habit of changing the entire tone of the show too quickly and for no reason.
The show is supposed to have a psychological, dark and horrifying air about it. And it has that aspect, and it carries it out well, this is mainly conveyed through Yuno, due to what I said earlier about you never knowing what she is like until the very end of the series, shes someone who blocks out her own memories, manipulates everyone to get what she wants and has a narrow train of thought. In a sense, Yuno is Future Diarie's true villan and Yuki suffers the consequences of believing in her, in an ending that makes you realise that love and omnipotence can be something that easily ruins a man.
Ahh! TONE. So it has a dark aspect like it should do, but sometimes it cuts away to scenes more commonly found in comedies or, yes, Ecchis. The ecchi was seriously pointless, it brought me away from the experience, removed immersion and made me feel embarrassed to introduce the series. Yuno is supposed to be seen as creepy, not a bloody sex object. There are short post credits scenes where Murmur is humorous, but I dont mind those. They give some insight into the show and are genuinely funny at times, what I dont like is what happens during the main bulk of the show sometimes...
An early episode has Yuno dragging Yuki around a theme park nand having a great day out. Fine, this shows the side of Yuno that one may want to love. Now can we get to show.
Then... well, she drags Yuki off to a swimming pool, and Yuno dresses in a provocative swimsuit to please Yuki and when their swimming the top part of the bikini falls off and she has to hug Yuki to stop her boobs from being shown until she finds it and shes all blushing and embarrassed... ugh...
Look I don't mind this stuff but I like it in context. I have never seen this thing boast it's self or see people describe it as ecchi, I dont want to see it if I'm not looking for it, it's dumb, and it undermines Yuno as a terrifying presence, and as mentioned earlier some scenes like the practice wedding are tolerable at best but do add something, namely Yuno's good side, which is what they are trying to capture but they can do that without swimsuits.
Then theres the bloody unnecessary like Yuki accidentally falling over and pulling down the trousers of another one of the shows female leads for a panty shot and I want to walk away and wait for the show to get going whenever that happens. Its a minor complaint that stops happening towards the end of the show, and as I said I really wouldn't have cared if it had been in the post credits, which is why I'm not raging at the naked locker room scene right now. But it's still frequent enough to make me angry, this a show that's supposed to, and does, make me think about the origins of life and gods. And no, that doesn't count how babies are made as Future Diary appears to think.

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So, today I review soul eater on request.
Mmm...
Well, Soul Eater was my first anime outside of pokemon and yugioh on TV, at least that out of what I was able to appreciate. I dont have much to say about it other than IT'S AWESOME.

All right, soul eater is about 50 episodes long, and it's set in the fictional death city and revolves around 'Meisters' who use 'weapons', people who can literally turn into weapons. It's pretty cool really, anyway death himself runs a school to train weapons and Meisters to defeat 'Kishin eggs' people who have taken to eating human souls for power, and then the weapons eat their souls.
The goal is to make a death scythe, a weapon that isn't necessarily a scythe that lord death can use, after 99 kishin souls (conveniently red as opposed to blue for everyone else) and a purple witches soul in that order.
The show has many arcs and follows three sets of characters primarily, Maka and soul, Black Star and Tsubaki, Death the kid and his twin pistols Liz and Patty.
The show excels in it's characters, and their interactions. Every character has a role, and perhaps more importantly, are all incredibly funny. I could spend this entire review going on about how amazing Excalibur or the quirky Lord death and his death scythe spirit among many others, but basically there is a character for everyone. I even know someone who likes the incredibly obnoxious Black Star. The characters and numerous joke episodes are pretty much the strongest part of the series that have to be seen in context to be appreciated.
The series main theme is regular people who, out of fear, kill others to obtain power and the main villan, the Kishin, is someone who has reached the pinnacle of this. While the show is primarily humorous, full of action, and adventurous, there are some disturbing but not frightening scenes in which the temptation to follow in the Kishin's footsteps is explored very well over the course of virtually the entire series, the exploration of one's mind in relation to this theme of fear and power is used excellently. This psychological aspect really pushes the show up from being typically shounen like bleach or one piece into something that those who appreciate more 'mature' stories can get into. It's essentially a well rounded anime in this regard that covers all genres well but doesn't particularly exceed in any of it's themes, and really, thats mostly what I really like about this show.
Personally, while many would say that the ending sucks, and I do agree that in terms of fridge logic that it is the weakest part of the show, I think it's really good, the battle against the Kishin asura lasts for a lot of episodes, is incredibly desperate, and is solved in one of the most delightfully simple ways that while may seem lame to some, I say gives off a fantastic message to people, assuming you look at it that way.
With some complaints, it must be said that some characters are introduced at ditched, or simply not given any closure. The show doesn't really have the epilogue that you might expect of a show with so many characters, but regardless it doesn't feel abrupt or forced, everything is fit in, however a few minuets over the credits showing the characters doing things could have put a lot more in it's favore. The final fight also seems to pull out a lot of things from it's a** although I can understand what they were trying to do with that.

Overall, a highly enjoyable show. Put up with the few characters you dont like and maybe some plot weirdness, and you've got a prime experience that unfortunately will still never outshine fullmetal alchemist or death note, just as a throw in. Of course, it will always have that little spark, maybe that being it's humour, characters, great art style, or simply just being soul eater, that will make it shine on in my heart.

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Time for my first videogame review!
Today I am reviewing 'The Last Story' a wii RPG that I dont think is released in the US yet. Since this makes the review moot to US members (Which is everyone) they may be put off by me reviewing this now, because it is definitely a game worth getting, so use this as a first look in guide although I will be posting spoilers. Especially in the story section.
Yeah, I am splitting the review into sections because a game has a lot more technical stuff to it than an anime, if you know what I mean. Still no score however.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are... ok, nothing spectacular, this is the wii we're talking about, but whatever. Theres nothing bad about it, but it is a game with the feeling about it where one feels that it could easily belong on a PS2. Although, it is smoothly animated and there are very nice lighting effects which admittedly during sunsets can obscure the action. If you like lens flare actions then the sunset battles may be somewhat breathtaking, otherwise nothing to report. In terms of character designs and costumes, they're not bad, the women are attractive and the men are spiky haired but not offensive, the costumes aren't over the top large in part to the fact that you have near full control over what the characters wear, the armour changes aesthetics and specific pieces of it can be removed and have their colour changed. It all looks very cute to have custom tailored heroes wandering about the game world. (By which I mean, all black and blue heroes wandering about wearing the same thing in my case... ok, not strictly true, but yeah.)

SOUND
There are only about 3 memorable themes in the game, otherwise the music compliments the action well and does it's job without excelling. Being localised in europe first the dub voices are British, although unlike Xenoblade, they dont seem quite as ridiculous. It's always refreshing to hear european accents, as besides britishness, there are also a lot of other accents in there for you to find. I remember being particularly shocked when a random guard spoke to me in a thick irish accent which I found awesome. Speaking of which, a very large portion of the game is voice acted, even many of the NPCs have voices, and I find this very pleasing. Although I dont know if there are any voice changing options but frankly I didn't really care.

GAMEPLAY
Yeah this is the big part. The game is a realtime action RPG thats technically unique but at the same time didn't make me think WOW. THIS BATTLE SYSTEM IS AWESOME. In the same way that say, The world ends with you did.
Basically, you control one party member, and I'll get to my problem with that later, named Zael while your allies are AI controlled. The main crux of the battle system that the game loves to talk about is Zael's power 'the gathering' which can be turned on and off at will with no consequence and puts an awesome little blue shiny glow on your hand, and also draws the attention of any enemy that sees you to your attention... which basically means that all the many enemies in one battle will be trying to maul you to death. This allows your allies to cast spells, and it also has many other small effects most of which you unlock throughout the story, such as a 'burst' function, meaning that when you attack, you build up energy, then you can release it when you turn off gathering to attack and slow down enemies. It also heals you when you attack, doubles allies casting time and allows for instant revival of allies... Basically, the gathering is the shiz that you will have on permanently during battles with only one real major downside. Not that this is a bad thing, the idea of becoming reliant on the power is a story point so it's nice that gameplay and story go hand in hand in this minor, easily missable aspect. Other than that, magic rings appear on the field when magic is cast that has various effects when you stand inside them, such as elemental properties (stand in fire circle from fire attack and your attacks have fire damage) or self explanatory healing circles. They can be dispersed for effects, destroying a healing circle for instance will destroy it but instantly heal all of your allies, as an example, or you can destroy an enemies' circle beneficial to them. This skill among others comes from a skill gauge that builds up as time goes on in battle, so you may be inclined to believe that battles are very tactical. But not the case, as the gauge builds up so fast you pretty much have access to all of your abilities at all times, including the 'command' function when it's full which lets you pause battle and issue commands. This may all seem daunting but it's a simple combat system that works but isn't mind blowing, and tutorials that come and go quickly like the game is ashamed of them are helpful enough and the game is never too punishing, in fact the difficulty is balanced on the whole. I have several gripes with combat, one is that to attack you simply walk up to an enemy and Zael will immediately hit them. I'm pretty sure that a button could have been used for this but the disconnect is rather unsettling, and since the action is close up from a behind back view point, it doesn't have the same excuse as xenoblade for this, which had a far out camera and small characters so that you couldn't really see what they were doing. I would still say the battle system is better than Xenoblade's because xenoblade involved mashing every skill where as here environment, use of the gathering and bla bla bla you get the point are involved.
On a side note, if it seems like there are many comparisons to Xenoblade in this review, it's because their both games in similar positions. (Last good RPGs on the wii because it's about to die, english before US releases ETC) although they are different games, apples and oranges really that somehow still have a lot in common, best just get both.
Anyway, battle has some more to it like destructible environments and a crossbow, but it's good and thats that.
Outside of battle, you walk around a small but full of life game world where you walk around Lazulis city and Lazulis castle taking on quests and basically ignoring the main quest, which is very linear but in a good way, you know. One thing I found strange at one point was when it appeared that the game had skipped from chapter 19 to 23, when going back to the city later on, I realised that this was because some sidequests actually count as chapters (allowing you to play some chapters out of order, or not at all) and I was presently surprised to find that the sidequests had been given just as much depth as the mainquest. No fetch quests or stuff, anything even remotely resembling those take seconds, if you can find them, and the best quests are on par with the main quest. Take a haunted house for example, no relevance persay, but seeing a backstory, cutscenes all voiced and a decent subplot involving a loveable, wimpy shopkeeper finding his wife in this place is great! And optional.
Due to this, I am honestly ok with the gameworld being small because there is a lot to do.
I mentioned appearance customisation earlier. Well... apparence is just about the full extent, theres also a fair amount of equipment customisation. Actually, thats mostly false. See, your actually given all your armour pieces for sale at the word go, and the only real difference between them is a minor switch in the stats magic and physical defence and, of course, appearance. Armour gets better as you upgrade them with money and materials. Which is alright, and actually the equipment changes in appearance as it is upgraded. For instance, the 'heavy armour' starts as a jacket and shirt, and while it retains this, as it is upgraded, a scarf, metal armour on the arms, a belt and all sorts are added to it. And if you want, the various pieces can be removed. You can take off the jacket or the armour, and customise it's appearance without loosing stats. This is great for perverts (like myself to an extend) who want to strip the ladies to underwear without loosing out on stats. And actually, only specific armour pieces allow for that and a complete strip down to underwear (doesn't go further) actually requires a specific sidequest to be completed.
Weapons are only slightly more interesting, you get a lot of them as the game progresses although they upgrade more easily and come in various types. Although generally swords and knifes, I did see a scythe in there. Some weapons need to be identified to be used, and some upgrade into other weapons. But upgrade is basically linear for both sets, the only strategy being to decide which upgrade is needed for what armour based on your remaining materials while you wait for monsters to start regularly dropping what you need.
Ok, now, my two major complaints.
First, equipment is customisable but skills are not. This is espeically infuriating for mages, you have only a few types of magic, light, fire, leaf and ice, whatever, and you actually have a mage for each element. The problem is that each mage can ONLY use their specified type of magic, and only about 3 spells, each being an upgrade of the last with no real added effect, of the last plus a support and special attack. Now picture this scenario, I'm fighting a boss that absorbes ice attacks to heal it's self, and I'm stuck with a mele and my ice mage. I cant tell my ice mage to stop casting magic because commands are very limited, if you can even consider them commands. I cant turn off ice, or gathering, and I cant leave him dead because he comes back to life on his owns (You have 5 lives per battle for each character. Useful) and of course, standing in his ring gives me ice element. It leads to the confusing situation when I am plunging my sword into the beasts belly (during a short quick time event...) and it's restoring health with each strike. I'm required to have him for the fight. What gives? Thankfully, optional. Situations like these clearly didn't occur to the developers.
Now, AI control. I understand that JRPGs need to appeal to the western audiences if they plan on selling well, but I really dont like AI control partners. I go to the JRPG for the battles where I have everything under control, I feel more tactical and I can do stuff. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean turn based, (Lost Odyssey is a terrible example of a revival of turn based gameplay...) but generally a game like eternal sonata, which while admittedly is still turn based, is a turn based real time RPG with turns played out in real time and it has action commands. A revision of that sort of system would be awesome. For a game like The last story, I imagine a battle system based upon what I have heard of Valkeria chronicles would be a great idea, as the game clearly wants to be tactical (before battle theres an overview of battle where you can see every enemy like fire emblem but less detailed)
Well anyway, at least a little extra control such as the ability to tell my idiot ice mage to stop casting magic and thwack things with that giant sword of his would be appreciated.

STORY
I wont say much on story because it's something to be experienced and this review has dragged on a lot.
Zael is a naive young boy who wants to become a knight of the empire, and goes to the secluded but thriving Lazulis island to do so with his friends. Since he was little, he had a friendship with Dagran, and together they formed a mercenary group which is quite large in size now, and it also puts Zael effectively in second in command, so thats a nice touch. It makes Zael kind and naive like the japanese like the protagonists but at the same time, at no point does he ever come close to whiny or in other ways in insufferable, (unless you dont like japanese cliches like 'I cant protect anyone...' which a lot of characters a guilty of in this and japanese media anyway, and if you dont like it you probably shouldn't be playing this) and he is also very capable. It's mostly unknown exactly how everyone met and got together and the backstories are hastily described, but what they lack heavily in past they make up for heavily in character, as stated, Zael is cool, Dagran is always cool headed and bordering on badass but not quite their, Syrenne is a hot headed drunk who duel wields swords (eeeee! Actually I didn't like her much) and the flirtatious Lowell (dumb ice mage) and the antisocial Yurik, yadada, they all hav good chemistry, can crake jokes at each other (especially Syrenne and Lowell) but most importantly never break tension during important scenes which at the very least puts one aspect of this story above something I didn't like in fullmetal alchemist. (BAD ALBERENZA!)
Anyway, Zael is bestowed the power of gathering from an unknown spirt, and due to this soon meets the local princess, strikes a chemistry, and over the course of the story has to deal with betrayals, wars, and the true reason behind wanting to become a knight. It's all quite formulaic stuff but it presents it's self so nicely and pretty much removes everything bad about the formula, like 2D characters. It definitely puts in character development for everyone, has a good supporting role and a good message about power used for wars, with good intentions but long lasting damaging effects to put it simply.

Overall, the last story may very well be the last good game you buy on the wii system if you do buy it, so thats an appropriate titel really, and you wont be disappointed. Despite flaws that might crop up once, or twice if your incredibly unlucky, you can be sure that by giving this game a play through you can give your wii's life a dramatic conclusion before the onset of the wii U, by which time, The last story might be a forgotten gem buried under all the new technology.

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This show has mainly negative reviews stating that the show goes a bit crazy, going in lots of different directions and basically sucking after a great start. Apparently, this is basically due to the fact that the show gets multiple directors working on different episodes (apparently the director for death note was also involved but I take this with a grain of salt and I may be wrong anyway.) Personally, I thought the show started off badly then got better. The show has many flaws, many plot holes, and many deus ex machinas that should be discussed.

Guilty crown is an anime set in 2039, 10 years after a catastrophic event in japan took place called 'lost Christmas' due to the fact that it took place on Christmas day. The event gave rise to an epidemic called 'the apocalypse virus' which appears to be akin to cancer, it's incurable but can be staved off by vaccines. Or maybe some people didn't get it, I'm unsure but it doesn't really matter anyway. Anyway, the apocalypse virus includes a symptom in which the body is crystallised. Japan began asking from favours from other countries and now are in debt and dependent on the other countries to keep themselves from dieing. The government now tries to separate the infected from the safe, creating a form of discrimination and a public appearance of remorseless malice against those with the virus. From the virus, something called the 'void genome' was created, a small vial of which there are only 3 created and have the ability to bestow upon people a godlike power dubbed 'the power of kings' and essentially allows it's user to draw 'voids', the form of a person's heart taken form as a tool. Shu Ouma is a loner who attends a school, and through a series of events meets a resistance fighter called Inori and accidentally obtains the void genome, and is practically forced into the 'undertakers' (or funeral parlour, the subs just cant seem to decide on a name) under the command of a man named Gai.

A lot of what I just explained is supposed to be obvious right off from the bat, but the exposition in this is actually quite hard to notice. It's there all right but it requires even the most hardened anime lover to pay really close attention in order to avoid becoming alienated. I watched the first episode of this series a while back and was underwhelmed because I had no idea what was going on, Shu obtaining the power central to the plot and the draw of the show at first looks like random coincidence. When watching this episode a few months later, and having decided to play close attention, I noticed that he gained this power when an unexplained-until-the-second-episode vial was shot by a mech, of which there are quite a few in this anime, and this was only shown for about half a second while you're still trying to catch your bearings. The show stops doing this towards the end, though maybe I was just enjoying it enough to actually pay attention.
Before I dive further, let me just say that this is the best looking anime I have ever seen. Seriously, the animation is amazing, the crystals are breathtakingly, tragically beautiful and towards the end are just about everywhere. The void power has little strings of light and what appears to be pictures of memories or something, I don't know, but this show looks amazing. The future is boldly realised, everything is darker, more claustrophobic, while still looking Japanese, and advances in entertainment include holographic screens and stylish mobile phones, none of it is shoe horned but seriously, Guilty crown looks absolutely fantastic, any CGI used, I didn't notice, and the music is also something pretty spectacular, with a quiet but grand opening theme. The only problem I have with the art is that the character designs are very generic. The school kids tend to look like forgettable archetypes and other characters who have distinct looks don't strike me as being as important to the plot as the school kids which strikes me as backwards. The costumes for the shows central 3 characters, Shu, Inori and Gai look great and change many times over the shows run time, from Inori's elegant starting outfit to a school outfit, and Gai's military look which only gets grander. And Shu starts off in a school uniform and ends up looking awesome in the shows second half. It's a shame other characters weren't given such diverse looks.
Speaking of Shu, he is one of japan's 'ineffectual' protagonists.
He's shy, cant connect with others very well, very aloof, likes being with technology and watching video's online by himself (on his phone) would rather take a backseat to events than get involved, hates himself with a passion, is kind and has strong ideals to a fault, almost to the point where (especially mid series) people start hating him for it.
I feel as though I can relate heavily to his character, and I think that outside of a few instances he reacts quite genuinely. However, to most he wont be relatable because of his often cowardly choices and indecisive nature. What you think of Shu and by extension the other characters will be the main break or make point of the show, more so than most animes in this case.

All right, so the void genome grants Shu the power to reach into the heart and take out a tool that represents that person. Inori's is the first and almost definitely the best, it's a huge, awesome looking sword that can slice through basically anything. Using voids, Shu can also jump really high and jump on magic circles like a sort of double jump, deflect missiles... basically, using Inori's void, Shu is invincible despite the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing. But despite him, he cant help but look really cool destroying several mechs.
The mechs are poorly realised. They are remotely controlled so one would assume that they can be used as drones that don't kill the users tucked away safely in a pod. Somehow they do, something to do with brainwaves and nerve endings, either way, why someone would build such flawed mechs is the most ridiculous thing ever. No one actually dies in a mech... ever... but normally most characters using them have to be hospitalized after using a remote control robot.
The show realises that Shu has been made too powerful so the show takes every opportunity to make sure that Shu doesn't get close enough to Inori to wreck things including a plot point where Shu declines joining the resistance group, because he feels that he's too worthless.
So Shu is often using other voids. Now, I mentioned earlier deus ex machinas, well, technically, there isn't that many deus ex machina's, I say technically, because the show has built it's self a central mechanic that can do whatever it wants to without diverging from it's own rules. The voids Shu grabs are very unique, an early one is a gravity gun which allows him to jump on bubbles, or a device that can open doors. They're more imaginative than I was expecting but they're a tad TOO imaginative- they are always so specific to the situation that it almost feels like a deus ex machina because Shu has no idea what he's going to get until he's already drawn the void. In a way, I find this more infuriating than if they simply had pulled multiple unexplained tools to explain victories, because as it stands the series is built around this concept and has it's back covered, in other words, convenient things coming out of nowhere are built into the shows mythology. So it would be dumb for me to rag on it, but it is still rather infuriating, because I have this sinking feeling that rather than the voids being shaped around the characters, the characters are shaped around the voids, starting as blank slates then once their void is revealed, the developers think:
"Hmm... who the hell would have a void that creates a massive barrier?"
"How about a shy girl who retaliates and puts up mental defenses when insulted?"
"ABSOLUTE GENIUS! I still feel sorry for the sod with hedge clippers for a void..."

The beginning of the show is largely a slog of villain of the week, it's samey, boring, dull, and I don't loose any respect for anyone who wishes to drop the series during the first half for all that it pulls, or other reasons.
During what I call 'the part 1 finale' I was thinking about how they were going to extend the series. It's so climactic that if they wanted to, they simply could have thrown in an epilogue and called it a day.
But that marks only the first half of the series, so I was skeptical of the second half.
... the second half was what the series should have been, the first half feels more like a really stupid prologue, as the series comes into it's own. I get the feeling that the show really should have started an episode before the start of part two, detailing Shu getting powers, having him uninvolved in part 1 and... well, I don't know, the series works but basically part two was what I was actually expecting Guilty crown to be when I first started watching.
By this point, Shu has already used all the voids he's ever going to use in the show, that being his school friends, so the show feels like less of a 'pull whatever is convenient for creators' element to a more planned 'work with the rules set out by the supernatural ability you have' style which is how animes of this ilk are supposed to be.
In part two the apocalypse virus forces the military to come down harder, so Shu's school and the area around it has become quarantined, anyone who tries to leave gets gunned down and vaccines and other supplies are low, everyone needs to be re-vaccinated every once in a while. Shu, having the powers he does, gets unanimously voted to become their leader after displaying heroics, abilities, and ideals that make him out to be a nice guy, despite the fact that he knows he's really not cut out for leadership. His friend becomes the vizier behind the throne, strongly suggesting that a society based around the usefulness around ones void needs to be put in place in order to survive and determine how the dwindling supplies need to be distributed. Some serious stuff goes down, and Shu starts gaining character development and becomes somewhat of a tyrannical ruler, however we don't hate him for it because he's just trying to do what he thinks is best.
People complain that the show goes to hell around here. Yeah, the central mechanic suddenly becoming good, the main protagonist stops being a coward without seeming out of character, characters suddenly getting good, ie, you actually know whats what, who's important, who isn't, and other stuff is bad right? Uhh, no, the show moves fast around this point but then again in retrospect it all makes sense around here as the theme of how a king is crowned simply due to circumstance (birth vs power), and that the event that caused Shu's change is incredibly ironic, furthermore Shu's actions soon begin to mimic the very military he is fighting against, yeah, the irony and drama is great and the only reason people seem to hate it is because fan favorites begin to die despite the fact that they were beginning to loiter and stagnate, and, great as they are, needed to die in order to make Shu and the plot get his head together.
The ending of the second arc is basically the ending of the first arc but better, with a more enlightened end and this time Shu actually succeeds in what he could have done earlier. The last deus ex machina pulled is a revival of two of the shows central characters and eventual villains, which explains them more so I'm willing to forgive one of the most dumb plot twists pulled due to the conclusion being so epic.

In conclusion, first half bad, second half good, characters especially Shu will determine weather or not you like the show. Even if you like it, then your probably better off watching code geass. Not bad, not great.

[Deleted]

Steins gate... Steins gate...

Now Steins gate was pretty damn good. It has a lot of what I ask for in an anime, a tight story, no unresolved plot threads even if it can be difficult to follow, a great central mechanics and very few inconsistencies. Plus, I cried, so thats normally a good sign.

Steins gate is 24 episodes plus an OVA. In other words, 25 episodes. Subs only.
The series follows looser scientist Rintaro, a prideful and cleaver man who takes every opportunity to boast, his extremely moe friend Mayuri, his friend Daru and cleaver assistant Makise, along with other characters.
Rintaro and Daru by chance are able to modify their microwave to send text messages to the past, shown when Rintaro witnesses the stabbed body of Makise, and urgently sends a text message to Daru using the microwave that averts her death.
From that point forward, they use the microwave time machine in order to do various time altering things.
The show moves quite slowly, especially at the beginning, which is something that overall pays off even if it's a little dull at points. Some things can be difficult to grasp at first, for instance many of the characters are called different names, for instance Rintaro will refer to himself as the great mad scientist of a different name and so on. The slow pace means that the show spends more time developing the characters and getting us to care about them. And I did at least, as the show uses sprinklings of humor. Jokes are occasionally repeated and there isn't a joke in the schemes of comedic dramatic irony as you may expect, as the time travel is deadly serious, but the interactions are chuckle worthy. Regardless, it gives them a certain degree of character. Even if you dont memorise their names, it's easy to recognise them even in the show's dark, brownish colour palette. Doesn't look bad, mind, but nothing really pops if you catch my drift.
Back to characters, unlike a lot of anime there aren't that many characters and most of them are introduced early on with maybe 1 character that doesn't turn up regularly (but is still important).
As it's time travel, many identities may be obvious simply through process of elimination, and of course it leads to a few coincidences, but what you call unlikely I call tight, it leaves very few loose threads. Actually, I dont think there are any loose threads at all. Everything that needs to be said is said.
The time travel is unique, to. Unlike other time travel fiction Steins gate opts to use many different types commonly seen. The 'D-Mails' that they use at first, have of course never been done before, but they soon move onto 'time leaps' which allows them to put their current mind into their pasts selve's body, essentially allowing for redos, and the classic kind where the physical self is sent back, so there are two selves at once. It added variety to the time travel without ever deviating from the 'world line' rule.

For complaints, I have to say the 'world line' concept makes for a good story but it bothers me a little. I'm trying to spoil as little as possible, but essentially Rintaro encounters a problem where no matter what he does, he cant change it, despite the fact that things had been changing radically with just one D-Mail early on. This is because the 'world lines', which is something they make early on point towards a single outcome no matter what happens up to that point, but there are multiple different strands of world lines which point to different outcomes... this stuff comes late in the series, and by that point it will make sense, but it does seem to be whatever is convenient for the creators. Oh, there aren't any deus ex machinas, sure, but it just seems a bit weird even if it does make a very good story. If the plot is good, I'm never really one to complain for small little niggling annoyances like that, and as I said it makes the story tight.

All in all, theres character development, great time travel, coincidental but tight story but basically good. Really damn good, made me chuckle a bit, made me cry, made me think, if you want to see time travel, I think that this is just about the best time travel I've ever seen anywhere ever. Stein's gate is great.

[Deleted]

Today I review an anime from 2009 called Pandora hearts.
It's a show in desperate need of a sequel... I have no idea why they decided to make an anime when the manga wasn't even finished... which is a shame, because Pandora hearts is good, and it could have been much better if the plot had been wrapped up in a neat little bow. It's clear to me that the budget ran out, although thats not to say the ending was bad, and a show for which my major complaint for it is that I wish there was more of it is generally looking for a good write up.

Anyway. Pandora hearts can be summed up as 'what would japan do with Alice in wonderland?'
It's quite clearly inspired by Alice in wonderland, in a good way. It doesn't try to shackle it's self to their inspiration yet it doesn't shoe horn in the references for the most part. It lends the show more a nostalgic and familiar feel as opposed to a confused feeling as to why they suddenly felt the need to make a wonderland reference at the last moment. Some of it can be strange, but, at least for the wonderland characters, I never felt that their addition was unnecessary.
Ok, the plot. It follows a young boy named Oz Bezarius who is an heir to the wealthy Bezarius family. The Bezarius family are part of a group of four wealthy families in an alternate 19 hundreds europe (thats what it looks like, they never specify country or time period) that do stuff which I probably shouldn't explain too deeply for spoiler reasons.
Theres a story used to discipline children that if their naughty, they are sent to a place called the 'Abyss' which is supposed to be somewhat like hell.
Oz finds himself thrown into the Abyss by a mysterious organisation called the 'Baskervilles'. Apparently, yes, the abyss is real, bug shocker. The abyss is supposedly based on wonderland, it has the dolls and Oz quickly meats female protagonist Alice in there, but the abyss plays more a plot device as opposed to a setting. Living in the abyss are beings called 'chains' which appear to have ranks, with extremely large but weak 'trumps' at the lowest. Infamous amongst the chains is the 'Bloodstained black rabbit' which happens to be Alice. Oz meets Alice and Alice offers him a contract, so that they can escape the Abyss. Which they do.
This contract gives him a tatto shaped like a clock, which will slowly turn and cause him great pain, upon a full rotation, he is sent back to the abyss. Alice has amnesia, so they decide to go and get her memories back while working with an organisation called 'pandora' before they are dragged down into the abyss.
I must apologise for spoiling the first 4 episodes, the show takes it's time in the beginning and I quite like that, but the show quickly goes through a few loops and twists which I generally found pretty engaging.
I found Oz to be quite likeable for the most part, he's childish and weak, but keeps his calm and at first, despite being childish and weak, I wasn't actually able to pinpoint any major faults right away which gave his character development some more impact to me. Actually, it's the crux of the show.
There wasn't any character that I didn't like, although I felt that the existence of some was somewhat unnecessary. They probably explain their role in the non existent season 2 or something.
Alice was actually my least favorite character, she fits into a 'tsundre' archtype, which I have a bias towards disliking. She's generally pretty lively though, she's interesting to watch and most of the mystery of the show is that of her lost memories, making her amnesia the crux of the show as opposed to a convenient plot device, so I did actually give a damn about her.
As for the villan, who I wont spoil, I wasn't actually quite sure who the main antagonist was supposed to be although if it has to be anyone it would be the Baskervilles, specifically, a specific member of the Baskervilles, who you dont know about until the last episode. If I was to read to much into the plot, I'd actually say that the main antagonist is Oz himself take that however you want.
The show's main hook is all the mystery. I cant deny that this show isn't well planned, some major things introduced in the first few episodes dont get explained until the final episode, such as the previously mentioned villan, but my major complaint besides the ending leaving too many questions is that the show sometimes waits too long to reveal some of these plot points. Sometimes they may even conveniently make something explode in order to postpone the big reveals for a few more episodes. For instance at one point we could have found out who this 'main villan' is much earlier. I found that I had most of the smaller plot twists sussed out long before the reveal, thankfully the characters catch on nearly as fast as you do, especially since the viewer sees far more than the characters do in order to make future plot points obvious, so I was never screaming at my computer screen telling them to use their brains for a few seconds to work out the obvious. And of course, drawing out the mystery is often used so that the characters dont get a chance to think sometimes.
Thats it for the story and characters. A few things before I end off.
The art is generally pretty good, characters are distinguishable from one another and have a unique look about them the look of the show is quite murky like a painting, which I happened to quite like, I'd like to say the chains look all unique although it bugged me when towards the end there only seemed to be 3 types of trumps so you had a bunch of identical monsters running around although every other chain is fine, incidentally most of the chains are subtle (and not so subtle like the mad hatter) references to Alice in wonderland.
The music is quite good, the show employs a single opening which is alright and two endings... which are ok. In the show the music is pretty good and some of it caught my attention although on closer inspection a lot of my favorite themes are just remixes of a plot device music which plays from Oz's musical pocket watch. Still good though.

Is that it? Well, if you have the time equivalent to 25 episodes worth of anime and you have nothing better to watch then you cant go wrong with Pandora hearts really, just dont expect most of your questions to be answered unless you also want to sink time into the manga.

[Deleted]

Before I begin, I need to apologise for an earlier review of something.
Seikon no Qwaser did not deserve the lashing I gave it on the grounds of it being cliche'd. I gave it a lashing based on it's other horrible, horrible problems such as the fact that I found the characters bland and uninteresting and a list of other things. And no, I dont say this because I'm about to give Chaos;Head a pass on grounds of it being a passable cliche- in fact the only cliche thing about it is the school setting and the female characters.
My thoughts on the anime industry, however, remain the same,. In order to stand out (Except maybe in the case of shounen like one piece, bleach, etc) and Chaos;Head... is exactly the kind of different anime that disproves that statement. It's one of the most unique things I've ever seen, even in terms of messages and here we are thinking that everything that needs to be said as been said, unless it's been said elsewhere and more subtly but I wouldn't know, actually, I can only think of one thing that comes close but I wont say. Thats really good going. unfortunately, it suffers problem. It has a younger brother who surpasses it in nearly every way for instance, (Steins;Gate) and people have now forgotten everything about it's predecessor.
Mostly on grounds of Chaos;Head being considered bad. And it is bad, it only has one interesting character, only lasts 12 episodes which isn't enough to flesh out the world they've created, and also various other reasons which I dont want to discuss just yet. So yes, on the surface, chaos;head is bad, and for those who simply dont want to wait or look deep, this show is just a little bit iffy, theres some plot holes, theres some things that are hastily explained and in my personal opinion there was a chance for an incredibly- INCREDIBLY climactic and epic showdown with a particular character which got glazed over very quickly. This person could even have been the face of the main villan, thats just how much of a missed opportunity I saw it as, but despite all it's flaws- for me at least, Chaos;Head just works. Most of it's themes and ideas just sit with me completely, everything, although it may not agree with some. Main protagonist Taku, the only interesting character, is just about as whiny as they come in Japan but I cannot help but like him especially at the end of the series to the point where he's pretty much my favorite anime character. He carries the show.
Chaos;Head is a 12 episode anime that draws inspiration from a set of visual novels released a few years ago by the same people who made Steins;Gate (Chaos;Head actually being the first) and the upcoming Robotics;Notes not far off from adaption.
It follows a japanese highschool student named Takumi Nishijo, a hardcore Otaku living inside a metal container away from the outside world. He collects figurines from his favorite anime, he watches anime obsessively, and he plays videogames especially MMOs obsessively. He built a minimum attendance chart to make sure he can go to school as little as possible and get away with it, so he doesn't really form any long lasting relationships nor does he want to fraternize with the '3D' world, with it's poorly drawn women and general boringness, Taku much prefers the '2D world!'
He also suffers from delusions although he hasn't seemed to care much until the shows beginning, his favorite anime girl Seria hangs around his neck, telling him to stay around and play games, even while the world outside crumbles around him. For Taku on his way homes witnesses a murder, although weather it was a delusion or not is impossible to say... and so begins a heavily mystery anime that kept me enthralled from start to finish.

OK. DONT READ FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS.
This anime seriously relies on it's mystery to keep the enjoyment up, so anything I say after this point will basically make the show less enjoyable, and, love or hate, it's something that I highly recommend watching. Then I bet you guys are going to watch it and come back, and wonder if I haven't gone mad because I'm recommending such a 'terrible' anime to them. Just do it.
Last chance.
I know you haven't watched this yet. Your just waiting to see how far you can push me aren't you?
Seriously, go watch it now then come back.
If you continue reading and you haven't seen the show I will hate you eternally.
If you've only seen about half the show it's ok to read a LITTLE into this next bit.
Ok last chance. I mean it.
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Ok so Taku suffers from a lot of delusions and it's the crux of the show, clearly. Taku gets sent pictures by a mysterious person online of what is being known as 'the new gen events' which predict murders. They seem to happen before they actually do, in the first episode he sees the first murder of a man pinned to a wall by small little... knife like metal stakes and later when walking back home he sees the murder just after it takes place, and a girl holding one of the knifes who appears to know his name and is wearing a (bloodstained) school uniform of the school he goes to, but Taku has never met her. The end of episode one has her appear in class, and next thing Taku knows, she's treating him like they've known each other since the first grade in highschool along with Takumi's other 'friend' whom Taku barely considers as such. Taku begins to think that it's some sort of conspiracy, rightly so, and detaches himself even further. It's quite clear that Taku has imaginings of what is clearly just a short lived, paranoid delusion or weather it's real, or indeed a lie. It was impossible for me, as the viewer, to tell. Action on screen switches seamlessly between what is supposedly 'real' to a delusion seamlessly until only the end of the delusion when it becomes obvious that it was a delusion. Thats some great stuff right there. This happens a lot at the beginning of the show, not at the end although the end is rather different to the beginning. Unfortunately what Taku deludes becomes a tad predictable after a while, it's either something paranoid, or something sexual. Yes, sometimes Taku might be around another girl he considers inferior to his anime girls and they may suddenly turn up in their underwear when he had previously considered them threats to his life. I'm glad that any ecchi that animes these days need to have in by law happened in story relevant scenes that add to the claustrophobic mystery, and that it happens less as the anime goes on rather than more as is typically the case. Just, get it out of your system Chaos;Head and thanks for being polite about it.
Taku is quite whiny with an inferiority/superiority complex and a screwed up mind but he reacts to the shows goings on in a way thats completely relatable- "What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" and even the paranoia about everyone being out to get him not unreasonable considering that everyone pretty much is.
So the show has a really great protagonist.
The harem he starts developing, these being the characters who appear to want to either kill or use Taku for whatever using, are supposed to be the the rest of the shows main characters. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure that this is where the cliché argument came from, and they are, they are the weakest part of the show especially since later on we are supposed to care about their character arcs. Although to be honest I cant imagine how they'd make this show work without them so theres not really much that can be done about them except by turning Chaos;Head into something not really Chaos;Head... which apparently may have been a good thing according to some.
As time wears on, the strongest part of the anime, that being the suspense of whats real or not, dribbles away with a rather anti climactic but unexpected (mostly, for me it would have been if this wasn't for the fact that this was the twist that got spoiled for me) plot twists which explains the delusions scientifically. And suddenly all the girls are given backstories, motivation and 'character' and they also start suffering from delusions. Really, really borin backstories, motivations, and 'character' with similarly boring delusions and while I guess some of it was pretty cool it is arguably the shows biggest flaw, that, combined with it and a shift of perspective to police officers investigating the murders, characters with no purpose other than to be exposition and one tangental connection at the end. This flaw is that the perspective shifts away from Taku, which ruins some of the illusions of 'maybe this entire story is fake and it's just taking place in Taku's mind?' it's still arguable that Taku is simply sitting inside his metal container in the dark asleep or more likely spasaming uncontrollably on the floor, but it becomes a serious stretch to believe that and obviously not the creator's intentions as these perspectives become more 'important' even though it's still really boring and serves no purpose other than to prove that these girls have character... what I'm trying to say is, the show would have been much, MUCH better if the girls had simply been bland and two dimensional, and that the snatching away the perspective from Taku would have made the show much better. In that way, at least the whole idea of absolutely nothing being real and the girls can be explained for being cliched as being Taku's fantasies in an otherwise insane mind. Or, a chaotic head!
But again this really isn't what the makers of this anime were really aiming for in the end, as the actual creepiness and making the story inside Taku's mind idea would be hard to make a message out of and this is japan. Somehow while I think it's less cool, what the anime actually opted to end on was somehow... better.

Now seriously, do not read now if you haven't watched all the way through. Previously was a false flag as I guess that previous stuff wasn't too bad, but here is where I get serious because I didn't know about any of this, I wasn't spoiled this part and I missed all the telltale signs... and it caught me off guard.
Last chance.
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So the overall message is that while Taku and the viewer are lead into believing that the world could simply be something taking place in Taku's mind, the actual truth is far more intricate.
Taku himself is a delusion of his real self, the mysterious person on the internet who is also on the verge of death, imagined to destroy a machine created by a co-operation in order to control the entire world.
So the overall theme isn't an affirmation of whats real it's mind control? WRONG. It's both!
Taky harnesses the powers of his delusions when he realises that as a delusion, he was created by himself and Taku in turn deludes himself. This is the meaning behind the creation of the universe that I have probably mentioned and almost defineatly thought about for a few months now, and now an anime agrees with me! Of course this gives Taku confidence and the power of friendship creates a delusion that saves the day.
Or did it?
Theres still an over reaching question of what might be real.
The main villans motivation was to use his 'mind controlling device' noahII to erase every negative aspect of a human, their greed, evil, malice, in order to create a perfect society, a fantasy which by the way I've had many times in the past.
Taku uses the power of friendship to destroy the machine, but the result isn't immediately a brighter world- in fact the world suddenly destroys it's self and becomes an apocalyptic wasteland. The 'true' form of the planet which we had deluded ourselves into ignoring- but then by deluding a better world for humanity they restored the world right there.
This sounds kind of bittersweet doesn't it? Well, not really, see, one of Taku's final lines is something along the lines of 'this black serpent (While commanding a black, evil looking serpent) will destroy anything it touches, delusion or not, it is the ultimate weapon crated out of pitch black greed, and while the NoahII could create a world of everlasting peace, that would leave me dead due to your ambition and your greed. Thats why I will use it to selfishly save the one I love and damn humanity. (destroys NoahII)
He actually says more of that, and I mostly extended the part I like best but the meaning is the same. It's so damn awesome 'it happens all the time in legends- and even a god ruling over a perfect world fools around with women.' So wow that explains the harem?
Finally a last quote...
'Any god who decides to build a utopia based upon the suffering of others doesn't deserve to be a god.'
I mean is that powerful or what? The overall message wasn't exactly 'be selfish' as the villan wanted to create a utopia with him as the head which was more selfish depending on how you want to look at it- but the message was that if we all selfishly hog each other and be together, and if we affirm our own existence in both ourselves and in others, then that is true reality, and then together we can delude- no, imagine a world where everyone can be happy and no one has to suffer.
I made that last bit up, but it's Chaos;Head's message and I could not love it more for restoring my faith in humanity, making me realise that being selfish isn't entirely awful, that what you feel in your heart is real, but what I love most of all about it is...
It actually made power of friends.
Nay I remind you, POWER OF FRIENDS.
COMPELLING.
In the most darkest way I think I've ever seen it done- except the persona franchise- as I'm pretty sure people are disagreeing with me right now as they read, that Chaos;Head has a truly bittersweet and paradoxically heartwarming message that is most certainly not a delusion.

[Deleted]

I feel as though I should review the first season, note, the first season, of The melancholy of Harui suzumiya.
But first. Scroll down a bit, yep, yep, just a little more, so that you cant see the first line of the review. Great, thanks. Wouldn't want to spoil Chaos;Head for you now.

So anyway TMOHS, which I shall henceforth call TOS, is a 14 episode anime about... well, an anime about god living in highschool. Sort of, actually, not really... after the initial part, I forgot that Harui Suzumiya, the main character, was supposed to be the creator of the planet as she was busy forming a cult following in both the show and in real life with her 'Haruhiism'. The scariest thing about that is that it's not a fan thing, I saw Haruhiism at the end of the (annoyingly catchy) opening! (That may have just been something the english dub team put in though, I have no idea) The creators were planning this and by heck did they succeed. I'm not a Haruhist, the day I become one is the day mind control is used on me, but the way the show it's done, what with catchy music and the fact that, while I dont like Haruhi, she is definitely the source of all the shows fun, I see the machinations of those who are in that fan religion.

All right maybe I should back up.
The story starts with a typical highschooler, our real main character and narrator, Kyon walking to high school. I can only assume it's his first day, because when everyone is introducing themselves to the class, the girl behind him introduces herself as Haruhi suzumiya, a girl with a reputation for being incredibly eccentric. She appears anti social at first, although as the show wore on I believed that less and less. She doesn't seem to change... she just doesn't make sense as far as I'm concerned which I'm pretty sure was intentional. Anyway she is clearly only interested in weird, zany things like timetravelers, Aliens, and Espers, but nonetheless Kyon is able to talk to her and she pretty much bullies him into starting up a school club called the 'SOS Brigade' where they search for those very things. They recruit a 'moe' named... Mikuru? Everyone seems to call her Missnasahina I'm just not sure I'm probably going insane, Yuki, a bookworm who never talks and someone else whose name I cannot recall. By episode 3 (or whatever episode it's supposed to be chronologically) we learn that the three recruits into the SOS brigade are a timetravler from the future, a humanoid created by aliens specifically designed for observation, and an Esper respectively. And that Haruhi is god, and she doesn't know it, but her wishes for the strange have thus come true. Kyon apparently being the only normal person. They never really do anything with this set up, unfortunately, after the initial introductions with the characters which involved a wicked fight scene with another alien, fighting a giant creature, and meeting the future self of another character the show decides to settle down into a nice comedic setup where scenarios are played out, generally involving Haruhi's wishes bringing some strange things into the episodes, and the other characters having to make sure she doesn't get angry, or, more likely, bored, otherwise she will bring about the apocalypse. This includes a murder mystery or having to win a game of baseball.

Well thats the gist of it. After the initial few episodes, having thankfully been able to work out the order, the show forgoes any sense of structure and simply jumps between new scenarios. I thought this was a shame, because a lot was set up for greater things like Aliens and giant monsters which went nowhere in favour of set pieces like school festivals or dressing up the moes in more fetish outfits... *facepalm* but whatever this show isn't designed specifically for me, and I suppose it's unfair to call TOS wasted potential when it lives up to what it wants to be- pure fun.
I've been giving it a lukewarm reception up until now, but I started watching this a day before this review and finished it. Granted, the first season is only 14 episodes, but I've taken longer to watch even 12 episode animes that I liked more than this. I questioned that as I watched, it's true, really, TOS is a really addictive show. Good characters, cleaver plot, cleaver one off episodes, and again, the show is just fun. I never really thought that the humour was funny, or even chuckle worthy, so there was little reaction from me while I was watching, but I cant deny that I had a lot of fun watching it. It's pretty addictive. Basically my heart says yes, but my brain says it's meh at best, but no matter how much I debate it in my head after finishing one episode I've already found myself halfway through the next episode. It's sort of worrying actually.
To be honest I'm exaggerating a tad, as far as these types of animes go, me normally hating these types of animes, I enjoyed it. There wasn't a character I truly disliked, Haruhi may have been my least favorite but after some fun scenarios, bunny suits, and an incredible singing voice she becomes hard to dislike after a while... I sort of feel like Kyon, I guess. Speaking of which I definitely thought he was the best character, best humour and best personality. Great protagonist, really, my only complaint is that he is a little bit bland but thats just me thinking of other people, I never thought that while watching.

Overall I dont really have any strong opinions towards either disliking or liking the show really... I dont even have any feelings towards calling the show meh. It's just nothing. Although... if you want a proper answer from me... just know that I'm probably looking forward to more fun in season 2, any other season after it, and the movie. Not right away though, I've got to get back to other animes...

[Deleted]

New favorite. Sorry Fullmetal alchemist, your still more amazing than most anime I've seen, but welcome to the NHK is simply... better! At least for me anyway. I cant say that it's objectively better... I mean, sometimes the art gets a bit lazy and if your watching the dub (I watched both sub and dubbed episodes and thought the dub was better, and more easily accessible on youtube) then you wont be able to read the japanese lettering that pops up on screen often, most of which is important.
Besides the animation issue, there isn't anything else particularly wrong about the NHK other than that. Soundtrack is great, and not just the opening and endings, but I even remember a lot of the in episode music plugs. Especially purupurupurin...

But thats never what I'm here to talk about. I talk about story and stuff. So lets get going!
22 year old Sato is a 'Hikikimori' basically Japanese for 'shut in'. In other words he never goes outside except when he has to, and he never has to because he's a college drop out, he can supposedly order all of his food, and his parents pay for all expenses so he never has to work either. He doesn't even have any real hobbies... considering that most of the stuff that happens in the anime is about him discovering all the addictive stuff that would keep one from going outside like videogames and stuff.
Anyway, he's visited by a girl named Misaki who wants to cure his hikikimori problem. Furthermore, Sato has delusions of an evil organisation called 'The NHK' who want to keep him a hikikimori forever, apparently, I mean, his furniture told him so!

So thats the plot. The show, or should I say the manga the show was based off of, was planned with the intention of dealing with issues in japan surrounding the Hikikimoris. It's always handled with a sense of grace and humour, in fact, this show is really hilarious, especially the english dubbed. I switched to the dub version about halfway through and found myself laughing a lot more for some reason, and thankfully it's not because the voices are bad. I recommend the dub, as I said, youtube.
If I had a complaint for the story I get the feeling that sometime it becomes a checklist towards the middle, it starts off well with Sato becoming addicted to hentai games, (yeah the show pulls no punches, thankfully, not too explicit) and has a plot from that point, but occasionally the show remembers it's original intention and has Sato take a step back to play MMOs and all manner of crazy things which I wouldn't dare spoil. (watch out for youtube comments)
Thankfully the show subverts this by writing cleaver characters, a cleaver plot, and by making sure that they never pull deus ex machinas to explain why Sato takes step backs often.
The reason? Sato is really, really stupid, one of the stupidest protagionists I've ever seen, and the show knows this and makes an example out of him. Thats why I can forgive the checklist, that, and often times the scenarios Sato gets into are very, very funny, to the point where I'd say they are the highlight of the show.
Actually, it depends. Everyone watching will likely experience each scenario differently, I for one found one scenario absolutely horrifying, making me feel sick to my stomach and plaguing me all day long, where as reading the youtube comments I saw nothing but 'Looooool' and at other points I was the one loling it up while others were scared. I'd go so far as to say that that scene I mentioned is the scariest scene I've seen in anime. Any anime.
EVER.
The very next episode I was back to laughing and it became nothing but a distant memory that I just dragged up.
Other points I cried, generally when the main plot kicks in, because every character is well developed, completely awesome, completely screwed up, and characters I gave a damn about. There is a cast of three main characters, Sato and misaki, obviously, and Sato's old friend Yamazaki living next door, and a few sub characters. I cared about every character, minor or large, even crying at just one scene where a character introduced for one specific reason and was only really prominent in about one episode.
In other words, I cried, I laughed, and once I was even terrified. Complete with a great cast that isn't bloated like most animes are, a terrific ending that may not sit too well with everyone, and being completely open to interoperation without ever coming across as pretentious, a good length, coming in at 24 episodes, oh, and fanservice (if you can really call it that...) that is always somewhat necessary and never often, and even some funny action scenes around halfway through, and you've got a heck of a good anime.
(Ok, the rest isn't a review as it is a wild tangent, some spoilers so continue at your own risk. I'd rather hope you'd stop at this point but it shouldn't kill the show.)

But you know... I may have got all the messages and symbolism, I mean, this is pretty much all of my beliefs in a nutshell except not quite so cynical, but looking at it from another point of view...
The characters are often really stupid, Sato mainly, often making poor decisions... and, we laugh. People in the comments laugh. I laugh. Yet it's quite clear that Sato's hikikimorism is caused by anxieties of people making fun of him... theres these laughing little imps which supposedly represent the NHK, and often when in public the faces will black out and Sato will get terrified because he thinks their making fun of him.
But isn't it true? I mean, we are!
The title of this anime is speaking to us! Welcome to the NHK!
WE ARE THE NHK! WE ARE THE CONSPIRACY!
People like us who laugh at people less fortunate than us are the reason they become the way they do...! The idea of people looking down on others is a major theme in the anime, so it's entirely possible they went for this angle. In other words, the meat of the anime is aimed at hikikimoris or Otakus, and kicks them straight in the balls, as it did to me a few times, but for even for those who cant relate, and laugh, they can still enjoy the anime but do you know what?
Those imps are you. The anime in this sense is prodding you in the back, and only if those people pay attention will they suddenly get kicked in the balls. Not that they'll really care, or even notice the poking, but I thought it was something to point out just to create a little bit of thought. NHK provides lots of thought, if you watch this, be prepared for a lot of sleepless nights just thinking and thinking and thinking...

[Deleted]

Oh yeah I sort of implied I'd review this...
So yes, I'm reviewing season 2 of the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and the movie, the disappearance of Haruhi suzumiya.
Actually, mainly the movie. I was quite disappointed by the second season and not just due to the endless 8.
Well, alright, the endless 8 was basically the same episode repeated 8 times due to a time loop story wise, hell knows real life production wise, besides maybe an opportunity to save on the budget or maybe because they had lots of different outfits they wanted to put on people or the dynamic camera angles... I could swear each episode had the girls in skimpier and skimpier swimsuits at that one scene as time went on... anyway it didn't bother me like most because it empthasised the interesting idea, but 4 episodes would have probably been enough if they were dead set on it.
Besides the endless 8, the first episode was one just stuck there for the purpose of the movie, but the rest were episodes involving the creation of a movie for a school festival. I'd already seen the movie and the episode detailing events after the movie in season 1, so I was disapointed that they spent so long on the filming and I refuse to believe that it was my fault for not watching season 1 and 2 smooshed together for the chronological order, if thats how it's shown to me, thats how I'm going to watch it because I dont want to go out of my way for that. You air it that way, thats how I'll view it. Thankfully there was a running subplot involving Haruhi confusing movie and reality logic causing the world to go slightly wacky which I wouldn't have known about otherwise, but it's all fairly standard stuff and nothing compared to some of the other situations in season 1 like the video game. A lot of episodes were spent on the movie, so overall season 2 just felt like filler, with only 1 interesting episode, being the first 1, that was only there for the movie anyway.

So, that mess aside, how was the movie?
Pretty damn excellent!
The plot of the movie involves the SOS brigade, or, just Haruhi, preparing for a christmas festival. Next day, Kyon wakes up on a cold morning (wearing the epic thick coat and scarf Shu ouma got me to love so much) to find that the entire world has randomly changed- Haruhi appears to be missing, Kyons friends dont remember him, treating him like a nut, and there isn't anything even remotely supernatural in the world. It's basically a pretty normal world, almost like some kind of reset for the series before the SOS brigade and all that malarky.
Unlike to the rest of the series, the movie always takes it's time, which is something I like in my animes these days. It's pacing is just about perfect where as the rest of the series felt so inconsistent and fast that even the endless 8 felt like no time at all. That was it's addictive quality, like a large packet of crisps, where as the disappearance is a gourmet cake, carefully baked and ment to be eaten slowly. Haruhi is obviously missing so I didn't have to put up with her the whole time, this movie is strictly a Kyon affair so I was as happy as a budy after being hollowed out by her... everything, personality and all, but besides Kyon theres a heavy focus on Yuki Nagato, possibly my second favorite character, and Mikuru's future self which made me happy. In fact I'm glad the show has started to embrace it's sci-fi, crazy ways, instead of using the characters as funny comedic set pieces, time travel and Nagato's unique abilities along with all that other fun stuff are used to create a story spanning time and space which actually made the characters and setting for the show more believable. Kyon gets some major development, as does Nagato (sort of) which is fantastic, because as much as I like seeing her indifferent reactions to everything seeing her with a less robotic persona for most of the film, even if it is replaced with a less likeable (personal opinion there) quiet shy girl, it's still a nice change of pace to set the movie even further away from the anime. Theres less of a focus on humour, which is good because I never found Haruhi humor that funny anyway, but I did find myself laughing a bit at the characters reactions to Kyon's mental breakdowns at the beginning of the movie as he slowly realises what has happened to the world around him. The ending had a big impact, made me tear up... a bit, though that might have been my allergies acting up, and I finished watching liking the Haruhi Suzumiya series more than I had previously... which is good considering that there are rumours of a 3rd season coming not anytime soon. If I had any problems with the movie it would be that it could stand to be a little bit longer in order to fix up a small plot thread which isn't exactly not explained as it is, we dont exactly know the whole story even though it's quite easy to predict, and it was done that way on purpose.
Anyway, the buildup to this movie was great and it was well worth watching. I've warmed to the characters significantly now, even Haruhi, and the Haruhi franchise as a whole. In brief, I thought the movie was great even if the second season was pretty disappointing.

[Deleted]

Right, just completed this game so I'll get right on it. Like 'The last story' I'll split it up into sections, without scores.
Firstly, Pandoras tower is the game, developed by a company I've never heard of and released as a wii exclusive. It's the last of the three games that operation rainfall campaigned for localization in america along with Xenoblade and the last story. Xenoblade and the last story are out now, however pandoras tower doesn't even have a release date yet. Take that American jerks! You can have your persona 4 arena and other games you get much earlier, I got... this, a good game, but... not P4A... I'm still dieing a little inside.
One more thing, pandoras tower despite being a part of operation rainfall, is an entirely different beast to the previous two titles. Xenoblade and last story are real time RPGS, while Pandora's tower is an action RPG not reminiscent of those games. Not really worth comparing, but I probably will anyway.

Graphics
Not much to say here, really. The graphics are nothing special, as far as I'm concerned they could be easily recreateable on the PS2 or something. Maybe I've been spoiled by great looking Xbox games, but whatever. It's aesthetic design isn't too great either, as in, the environments aren't particularly memetic. The characters will be though, because there is only really 3. Monsters aren't varied either, for the most part and rooms occasionally repeat themselves which I'll address later. There are some nice effects however.

Sound
This game was voiced by british voice actors like xenoblade, and The last story, however it isn't nearly as pronounced. Our main protagonist Aeron almost never speaks, sometimes he doesn't have dialogue, which is good because when he speaks he is incredibly flat. Old woman Mavda sounds like you'd expect, so heroine Elena (I'll explain everyone it a bit) is the only one with decent voice acting (Mavda is fine but not memorable) which is good, because you hear her voice the most. Minor characters barely registered with me. Most of the game is voice acted, Aeron is mute occasionally though, which I thought was weird, so you wont be hearing funny british quotes during battle. Which is fine because gameplay is a party of one.
As for the music... it's all fine, sets the mood, but I cant remember anything except for the excellent boss fight music. Of which there are two plus the final boss.

Story
Story opens with girl being attacked by a monster in a crowded place, guy saves her and old woman leads them to a wilderness called 'The scar' a giant chasm in the centre of which is thirteen towers, suspended above it by 13 chains. Supposedly, the towers prevent the scar from tearing the world asunder.
Aeron is the guy, and our incredibly bland main protagonist, Mavda is the old woman, and Elena is a delicate flower who after the attack was inflicted with a curse that threatens to turn her into a monster, unless she eats the flesh of monsters from the thirteen towers. To stave it off for good, she must consume the flesh of the 12 masters of the towers to cure her for good. Guess what job your bogged down with.
The story to me struck me immediately as being very much like shadow of the colossus, in which you had to kill 13 colossal monsters to resurrect the protagonists' girl friend. Unlike that game though each of the towers are dungeons, and the masters aren't that big, but also pandora's tower has much more lore behind it, which you slowly learn as the game goes on. After the tutorial bit a narrator tells you about warring kingdoms in a fantasy land, but it's so far removed from the game that none of it really sank in until the end. None the less there are lots of twists and turns, some of it predictable, I'm sure, maybe not, just know that the story gets the job done and presents it's self nicely, so any predictability is offset by lots of focus and careful narrative crafting. Of course, if you bother to read and translate various notes left around, you'll learn some things that clarify the law, and also some foresight into future plot twists, but oh well. I was never entirely sure HOW it was going down even if my guess as to what was going to happen was more or less right.
Use of cutscenes is used right, never too long but there a lot of them spread out in bitesize chunks. Some cutscenes appeared optional, or at least missable if you think about and even the minor ones like Elena waving you off as you head to the towers repeated with subtle differences. Watch Elena eat flesh, for instance, remind yourself that her country were raised with religious beliefs involving vegetarianism. And that meat looks nasty, dripping with purple liquids...
I genuinely cared for Elena as time went on, because she is pretty much the only character TO care for and because it's really easy to tug my heartstrings.
If I had a problem with the game, it would be the multiple endings. They order in terms of a visible affinity level with Elena ranging from everyone dies to happy fun scale, not to mention a 'game over ending' technically making 6. I got the second best ending, looking up others I realized important plot points were revealed in previous endings! Clearly, they expected you to ignore Elena, get the worst ending, and then work up your affinity in the new game plus mode in which everything carries over, and you can quickly jump to wherever you want in the game. Overall the endings disappointed me because you get them based on how much time your willing to waste getting presents to build up affinity rather than meaningful player action, like moral choices (and no, I'd rather not a mass effect style scale. Simpler.)
Overall I liked the story... much more based around provoking emotional responses from the player than Xenoblade and last stories huge epics.

Gameplay:
Yeah, here we go. The meat of Pandora's tower and of course what your here for is the gameplay. I said the story was like shadow of the colossus, however the gameplay reminded me most of devil may cry. The first one, I have no idea about sequels.
It's third person, you got a sword and some enemies and you mash buttons. Although that doesn't quite do it justice, you'd die easily. I never found myself using block, although I used dodge a lot because enemies hit like a truck, but whatever. There is a limited inventory system and equippable... equipment and of course, a heavy emphasis on item creation and weapon upgrading. Thankfully, there is much less of it because you have an equippable space (ever played kingdom hearts 358/2?) rather than set spaces for equipment slots, and armor doesn't change appearance. In fact, I found actual armor to be quite rare for most of the game because I didn't bother making any, most of my space being used up by my weapon and trinkets which added more stats than armor in total. There are only 3 weapons, too, each play differently. A 4th is obtainable post game, but by then you've already picked and upgraded a favorite so it's barely worth mentioning.
So anyway... with all that out of the way, the main innovation og this game was the use of a separate weapon, a chain. You can point at things with the wiimote pointer (I used the classic controller which uses he right analogue stick, works great! Control scheme down to preference) and press a button and throw your chain out, attaching it to that object. So... you can use it in a similar way to the zelda hooksot, for most of the game, or grab nearby shiny objects at a distance, or grab an enemy and fling him about! There are many inventive uses of the chain which I wont talk too much about, but in brief it's awesome, satisfying to use, and doubles as a combat tool, a puzzle solving tool, and a movement tool. It's a little difficult to use at first but repetition is key and it becomes second nature after a while.
Actually, it's a little too versatile in battle, to the point where it could almost replace your actual weapon which you hold all the time. The chain is the only real thing you use in boss fights, too, the idea in boss fights being to tug on master flesh, the difficulty and variety being to get it to reveal it's self, but it leaves little for the weapon to do.
Another major gimmick is a permanent time limit. Elena needs beast flesh to sustain herself, and it's game over if your in the tower and the time limit runs out. I never failed this way, I died a lot by loosing all my HP, but I always got back to Elena in time. Sure, I had to cut it close as the towers got longer... leading to some, incredibly unsettling scenes... but beast flesh is always in good supply, and it's easy to leave by dropping down because fall damage is minimal, the skill actually comes in leaving short cuts for faster trips back up to where you left off, like ladders, and fighting tougher monsters for higher quality beast flesh, restoring more time. Time restored also increases as your time decreases, so even low quality flesh restores a lot in the final stages so your never, ever pressed. The biggest worry is time used during boss fights, using up about half your time which seems to be at least 20 minuets total, considering bosses can be about... 10 minuets long.
I mentioned repeating dungeons earlier on.
You see, the religion of the country who built the towers believed that there were 6 elements that made up the world, and that each element had a light and dark side. So yes, the towers represent this which means that the first six towers are repeated in the next six, (dont worry about the 13th tower.)
Thankfully, they evolve on the puzzles and make things more challenging, and the last two towers are genuinely ingenious, (Sort of... you may have seen the gimmick elsewhere but I like it) so it doesn't bother me as much as I'd like to be bothered about it.

That about covers it... overall, I really enjoyed this game and I recommend to American wii owners to buy this when it comes out, and it probably will, if only because it's a retro fun experience with a well told story.
And no, I'm not saying that to get my revenge for persona 4 arena... no, the revenge is simply a bonus, no matter how insignificant.

[Deleted]

Boy this thread hasn't been updated in a while. Not because I've been lazy, well, sort of, I just haven't played or watched anything worth reviewing because besides Durarara which I kind of stopped watching I only watch ongoing anime these days. Damn.
But wait! I just completed an Xbox360 (PS3 also) JRPG called 'Resonance of fate' which I'll review because I find it interesting and because this thread has to do something.

All right a brief overview, resonance of fate is a game developed by tri ace, published by Sega(?) and normally when I see Sega's name on JPRG box it's a sign I'm going to love it (see Skies of arcadia and Infinite space) however this game left me lukewarm. Great if grindy gameplay with stuff to do with a story that was overall a waste of potential.

Graphics:
You know, I should just say 'aesthetics' because thats all that matters visually. Err... well anyway this game is on the xbox. An RPG, no less, so obviously it looks bloody fantastic. It's more relastic than what you might see, it goes for a steampunk style reflecting it's plot well and character designs are varied and distinctive. Characters also dress like human beings (at least until late game costumes) which is nice. Also, character outfit customization, or rather, palete swapping customization. Ha ha, actually thats a bit unfair. Theres actually three different looks with clothing types to choose from each with their own palette swaps... going off topic. Overall awesome.

Sound:
Ever heard what shall now be eternally be refered to as 'golden sun music?' see also tales of vesperia and possibly a few others. Well it's battle themes are like that, more sensible for over world and town themes. Basically, pretty awesome except I did have the game on mute most of the time not because it was bad, but because I preferred listening to web shows while playing. Voice acting is good although I'm not a good judge of voicing acting so it could be awful to the unpleaseable chaps for all I know. Sound effects, uhh, alright at first and as you'd expect. However one gets louder as your ability to attack improves, especially annoying during boss fights when I was trying to hear the regular banter between them all.

Gameplay:
Here we go. So unlike most JRPGs the game has your three main protagonists, 3 only playable characters, using guns. Nice change of pace. It's turn based realtime in a way that isn't comparatively subpar like eternal sonata or final fantasy XIII failure of a battle system. Or indeed the ATB system in general AHEM.
So your on a field and control one character at a time, and thank the stars you can finally control all your characters now so that you can actually employ strategy instead of let your partners do everything (XIII and admittedly tales series are major culprits. See also Xenoblade, Last story)
Alright, sorry. So you have one character and can move around freely, you have a set amount of time until your turn ends which only goes down when you move or shoot. Enemies also move about while you do, potentially annoying when they shoot me while charging, but at least gameplay flow is rarely broken while I wait for the AI to have a crack at it. When you fire you wait for a bit to build up charges, so there is muscle memory timing in releasing the shot just as your turn ends for maximum damage. In a certain one on one boss fight late game, the battle system felt almost real time except it was as slow or as fast as I wanted it too be. Mt favorite part of turn based systems, unlike bloody ATB.
However you'll rarely be firing regularly. You'll be employing most of your turns with hero actions, here time pauses and you set a path to run along, and you can fire until you reach the end to your hearts content while running or jumping, and it all looks very much like steam-punk matrix. Classic. This consumes a Bazel shard, and those things are occasionally more trouble than they're worth. They increase as you collect shards akin to pieces of heart in zelda, but you can actually die when there is at least a shard remaining. When your HP drops to zero you actually explode several shards from your body, normally leaving you with no gauge most of the time. This renders you wimps barely able to fire a gun, make hero actions or be invincible. It's virtually game over, making it a toss up between using regular attacks like one would use a toothpick to destroy metal walls, or use techniques that actually let you win. You can get them back by destroying parts of enemies bodies, hardly worth mentioning, or merely killing one.
Resonance of fate is a grind, you have to kill a lot of enemies and regular enemies let a lone boss fights can be very difficult. Not to mention material for item synthesis. Synthesis is in everything now too isn't it? Ugh... oh well, guess it's not too bad.
Anyway so the problem here is that fights are occasionally not fast enough to justify grinding. especially since you normally need two turns at least for everything, two types of damage see. Machine guns cause scratch, normally brings enemy HP down to zero in one attack but it cannot kill. Handguns do absolutely nothing but are the only things that can kill besides grenades, too unreliable mostly. Thankfully running is easy and risk free, mostly. Late game is fine too, your strong enough to grind.
Overall I like the combat, focus on only three consistent characters is also nice. Except if one leaves you cant do your ultimate attack, and suffer for it. Actually, it didn't much. Theres only two attack types, and rarely could my machine gun guy bring down the health of more than one enemy in one turn, so my handgun character only had one person to kill before dealing like 1Hp of damage to someone else. My third character also used handguns and grenades are pitiful, stronger, sure, but always felt unreliable. This meant his turn was useless and I might as well switch to my machine gun again to start the process. EXP is based on damage dealt, not shared, so I always had odd situations where my third character was 20 levels behind my other two star players. Could have given him a machine gun too I guess, but they're rarer than handguns and any machiene gun he had would have been weaker than my person who normally duel weilded them, so even if he did it would still mean switching back would be the better choice except now he cant heal. Looks like he's stuck on situational because HP restores yourself under normal circumstance healing duty which doesn't contribute to level. I had to use him only to get him away from enemies who closed in on him, because he stood on the spot most of the battle, a sitting duck. I mentioned super move earlier, a tri attack involving all characters. Its strong however position is everything, and almost impossible to pull off especially if they run into walls or enemies. So I rarely used it.
Again, I liked the combat and it's structure however it's ancillary features especially some moves which literally only exist to make money from hitting enemies make it something a little bit eh... a cinematic all on it's own, though, and I wonder who player tested it... maybe I just wasn't maximizing my tools.
There is a bunch of side missions and optional dungeons including a brutally difficult one so there is stuff to do outside story missions.
Finally the world map is interesting, you use energy hexes to open up the map and it has the same tetris appeal of slotting shapes together, you find hexes of different shapes and colors lying around and in battles, essentially creating another reason to grind, but also to make sure you don't explore more than you should without feeling as though it was peeled from a story writer's behind, instead of feeling restrictive, it taps into exploration instincts.

Story:
Finally, right? Here's a brief overview. Bear in mind it's difficult to talk about this because I'm pretty sure the game wit holds context in order to reveal it as plot twists for later on. Ugh...
So you follow young hothead Zephyr, adorable and determined Leanne, and a veteran, fatherlike and overall pretty hilariously perverted man in Vashryon, who incidentally was that guy I never used.
They live in the middle class in the huge clockwork tower bazel, a steampunk inspired tower made by humanity in order to escape a post apocalyptic world. However society is pretty civilized now, people cant leave Bazel, but they do have a god and cardinals in the upper class who are basically the pope, but also governors and general rich people. Not bastards, however, as 'hunters' or mercenaries, you do jobs for many of them among others and most of them are pretty decent folks. An art enthusiast, a food enthusiast, and old bloke, some other guy who serves as narrative exposition whenever the game feels like it at the end of chapters*coughfinalbosscough* and a retarded manchild who I shan't dwell on. Really helped to contextaulise the eventual villains of the game, although it did feel jarring to beat them up especially since we were all chums a while ago. And not in that meaningful, metal gear solid 3 sense.

All right I spoiled more than maybe I should but now is when I really gut the story and spoil. Ready?
Alright so the story is terribly paced and terribly told. The environments and themes are all there, there is some great stuff- fate, false gods, life and death, machines taking over life, post apocalypse, questioning of beliefs and convictions, and really great characters. It's just buried under vagueness, ambiguity, and pretentiousness. The game starts with a cinematic depicting a battle we wont understand until we've already forgotten it late in the game, thats before the title screen, and then Zephyr saving Leanne from falling but then it cuts out and they're now older, hunters, and somehow there's this other bloke hanging around. It's all revealed to late for you to really care or grasp. Overall, the cutscenes were surprisingly short for JRPGs however they are too little too thinly spread, yes, a game actually became worse because there wasn't enough cutscenes. Considering hours of narratively vacant gameplay can pass before a story moment, you'll forget everything before you have a chance to memorize it unless I'm just thick. It's been half a year since I played the first chapter, after all... the story it's self feels split in half. There is actually quite a lot of fun here, early game cutscenes don't actually show much important. Basically just the characters interacting. Not necessarily talking about bla but acting and behaving like human beings, cracking jokes and getting into comical misunderstandings, showing us their lives rather than telling us they're close because reasons. I mean, it' s tenuous as to how it all happened at first besides the whole recusing thing but they really mean a lot to each other which makes them awesome.
Of course, I said half and the latter portion of the game reveals everyone's tragic past as it comes up to bite them in the ass, as well as plenty of talks about fate etc. The main villan is someone I liked, he feels like he should be my favorite sort of villan, someone trying to do something right but ultimately got tricked with promises of power and unreasonable dreams that forces his hand to... wait, what exactly does he do? I know you reading wont know, I'm asking myself. He kind of decides to fight you out of submission to fate but I don't see why we need to kill him ether... I mean, it's not like we take down society or even the actual threat staring us in the face throughout the whole thing.
Yes, god, is the true main villan. Zenith, an I intergrated into Bazel which was essentially the most amazing, powerful, and best air conditioning unit in the whole of human history. Seriously, it's what people worpship now get with the times grandad.
Haha well it's glorifed as an actual god and it does actually have an actual threat, see, it purified the world of cancer. Which had been killing human kind like plague in oxygen form apparently, then it decided to regulate cancer in crystals called quartz, a single quartz correlating to a human life. It smashes, they die. Besides that everyone is apparently immortal now, or maybe it was 100 years. However Zenith has control of quartz and by extension lifespans, so essentially he can do whatever he wants for seemingly no reason at all. This twat is utterly unpredictable, besides being a 'villain' of sorts he has no speech or motivation, essentially a 'thing' they never meet and serves only as plot device fodder. Why, for instance, does it let people live gunshot wounds for no justifiable reasons other than to provide happy endings? Why does it regulate lifespan, was it built as population control? It serves as a great god even the cardinals themselves believe in, but what exactly is Zenith for? If it's prone to letting people survive impossible deaths, why isn't it equally prone to wipe out the human populous with a thought? No one maintains it and it doesn't seem to have a clear master or programing anymore, so WHY!? Not a villain, plot insulation like the force or maybe a cleaver metaphor for 'deus ex macina' in many senses. I dont buy it though because the game seems to think of it as being a metaphor for 'fate' utterly unpredictable and doing crap for no reason other than robo giggles. Cheeky, game, but Zenith isn't fate it's just poorly defined. Then again it is a bloody air conditioner, the ancient people who must have built the monstrosity that is Bazel (Similar to Babel? Har har game, I see what you did there, along with so many others) were probably too busy holding their breaths while building it to worry about long term effects.
Overall the game builds up and as it's heart in the right place, it can strum up cool bossfights you feel inclined to win because your playing likable people however the end of the game is super serious, Zephyr basically acts angry, yelling and angsting everywhere when everything about Vashyron's Zelos wilder except able to be taken seriously by other character's personality evaporates into... nothing other than to talk about the past with the cardinals, where as Leanne who was previously my favorite character for some reason was the person just off handedly telling everyone, villains and allies alike, the games own messages of leading your own life, and some vague stuff about fate in which I think was something long the lines of sticking to your own path or something but either way stuff we all know. The humanoid main villain was great but poorly justified, both as a villain and as a final boss. I mean, the only real human villain gets killed and this girl who seems immortal, seems to have power over the lives of the protagonists and WINGS MADE OF PURE LIGHT would have been a much better final boss but everything about her seems utterly pointless. Literally, she's even more obtuse than Zenith is and that deserves a reward. At least Zenith is there for something.
I was left disappointed by the game's ending. Wrong choice for a final boss who doesn't die, and seemingly no change to the world afterwards. Actually, it goes all sunny and they're in fields at the end- what? It looked like they were in the english countryside. There wasn't even a voice over saying 'we finally decide to give Zenith what for and somehow cure that incurable cancer pandemic that was plaguing the earth without Zenith... and quartz, which should have killed Leanne when it smashed... is now... in her hand? I'm just groaning under all the plot holes, how everything is fixed, the ending, the fates of the characters and mankind... just disappointing because it had a lot going for it. I like to think that everyone died, or at least the main characters, and the ending is just a delusion in an afterlife or maybe they decided to start taking regular doses of LSD after saving the world from the looming threat of people being a bit too fond of their air conditioners.

[Deleted]

Oh boy... where to start on this one. It took me a while to watch this despite it's 12 episode length simply because I wasn't enthralled from the outset. I believe the reason many people watch this show because of it's reputation as a dark version of the magical girl anime sub genre, a genre which I don't think has had any noteworthy titles, at least not ones I know or rave about. I've never actually seen anything from the genre before Madoka, but from what I could gather it's essentially power rangers with little girls. Having never been a fan of power rangers and animes needlessly adding little girls for no reason, well, it's no small wonder. But yes, I saw Madoka, and while at first I thought this was essentially pretentious, telling a rather basic story with standard dark elements to it that any other anime could accomplish and shielding it's self with the fact that it's a subversive magical girl anime. However, even though I thought I basically had the plot sussed out by the second episode, the show threw a lot of plot twists in my path and had things slightly different to my predictions (Should have noticed it sooner...) and it while I had guessed all the themes in their basic forms, by the end of the 12th episode I was crying and found myself surprised both at how much I cared and how similar it's themes were to Welcome to the NHK, sort of.

So plot, Madoka is a 14 year old japanese highschool student, a carefree girl who isn't doing especially bad or excelling. She's happy with friends and stuff, in particular two named Sayaka and Hitomi. Anyway a transfer student arrives in class, Homura, who is cold and distant. However Madoka is intrigued because Homura was a girl she had seen in an apocalyptic dream the previous night, the dream serving as the first thing you see in the anime before the opening theme. Or maybe the first thing you see after the opening. Whatever.
Anyway Madoka and Sayaka get attacked by an LSD trip, and a girl named Mummy saves them. Wait, Mami. Mami reveals herself to be a magical girl who hunts down LSD trips and exterminates them. Also Homura doesn't like the idea of Madoka becoming a magical girl, and finds herself at odds with Mami. Apparently magical girls fight each other, though not immediately in the first episode, poor Madoka, she thinks thats dark. Anyway THE CUTEST THING EVER called Kyubey says she'll grant Madoka and Sayaka one wish if they promise to become magical girls and fight LSD trips, LSD trips suck happiness out of people and cause them to fall into despair and die. Occasionally I think they do it the old fashioned way. So, it rolls on from there. I'll talk about later plot developments later in case anyone wants to go watch it before I spoil stuff later on, read the next bit though.

So, the plot seems pretty basic, and full of girls. No male magical girls huh? well, they do explain that actually, and it's always nice to see an all female cast that isn't designed to pander to a male audience in anime for once. Anyway there are only two notable male characters really, one is plot fodder but ultimately pays off, he's called Kyosuke and the other is Kyubey, who isn't human. Anyway, throughout the series titular Madoka herself seems to be coming from a different anime, namely a typical magical girl anime (I think...) she's innocent and naive and I just want to pinch her cheeks! Actually, I want to pinch everyone's cheeks in this anime. It can be hard to take this anime seriously at times when all the girls are acting serious. Especially Homura. They do the badass thing where they give her cold eyes and no emotional responses, or more importantly have her do the hair whip while she turns arwau from the cast! Then turn around and tilt her head to the side and say something cool and detrimental to the main cast like 'b****, I know waaaay more than you do 'cause I'm so badass!' all the while sporting rosy, pinch-able cheeks and adorable round blue eyes. I actually couldn't take anyone seriously until the very end. However, they are all rounded. Madoka doesn't actually become a magical girl for ages, which is weird. She spends a lot of time in indecision, and eventually it pays off. Eventually you work out that her wish is going to be the pivitol point of the anime early on. Besides Madoka who honestly isn't the most interesting character, Sayaka gets tons of motivation and becomes a magical girl very on. Hitomi becomes plot device fodder, as does Mami, however another magical girl called... uhh... she has red hair and sports short denim shorts and is reguarly angry also gets a lot of development, however Homura herself actually ends up as the heart of the story which I didn't expect for a moment. However the best character by far is Kyubey, this little cat digimon-esc little bastard was utterly stellar and outshines most of the rest of the cast. He sounded like the girls which is weird, ie, high pitched, but he is so matter of fact and strangely intimidating in presence that I couldn't help but love him. To explain why, I'll have to spoil.
But first, I'll talk about smaller features before I make my final verdict on the plot.

I talked about character design, they're overly cute but otherwise work fine. Seriously, even Kyosuke is as adorable as the girls. I want to take them to bed and give them a big hug allllll night. You know. Because they're cuddley. Like teddy bears. umm... this is how child molestation starts. Although there is a plush kyubey toy. WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE! Anyway they're all distinguishable. Now when I talked about LSD trips I meant Witches, but I meant it. They hide in labyrinths, and at this point the show takes on an animation style that looks like... an LSD trip. Ok, more like animated collages that look like they were made by children who perhaps may have been on LSD, but in actuality are carefully constructed masterpieces in their own right filled with visual imagery that could represent anything for all I know. The witches themselves and their minions blend in seamlessly, making it look like their world. There is a labyrinth nearly every episode, so roughly about 12 styles maybe, and each while keeping the same style each look so distinct that I can honestly say I've probably had the best LSD experience possible without actually taking it or playing Polybius. Probably. Either way it's awesome, great visuals across the board.
As for sound, I watched the english version and it worked well, voices pretty much voice themselves. Everyone sounds like they could have been played by one voice actor, but weren't, however they're all distinct and work well, from Homura's emotionless talk to Madoka's innocence and red head's arrogance. Just looked it up, red head is called Kyoko. Anyway music was not outstanding. I think it fit the tone and I think at one point I saw people playing violins in a labyrinth, as in, people in the show were playing the music, and only male Kyosuke also plays on his violin occasionally. I love violins but I cant remember anything from the show, except for a disco remix of the main theme in an arcade. The main theme is quite cheerful however it does have a hint of melancholy, and isn't bad. The ending theme isn't bad, it's dark and has dark imagery! However, not outstanding. There was also a unique ending song episode 9... I think I was meant to feel something, but Kyubey had entertained me too much to remember that I was supposed to be feeling stuff. Not bad though.
Anything else? I don't think so, so lets take a look at the rest of the story. I'll try not to spoil everything... but if you haven't seen it yet, just stop reading now ok? Or I'll do that thing I did in the chaos;head review. I apologize for that.

So around the middle portion the girl's wishes, ok, just Sayaka's as everyone else's wishes had already done that, comes back to haunt her. It's also discovered that Kyubey puts magical girl's souls in soul gems, thought only to be a source of power for magical girls previously that empties with use, and need witches souls to fill up. But no, it's there soul and if it breaks they die. The girls also freak out, releasing that they live in empty shells that cannot feel pain the same way anymore. This means they can fight better! But apparently they're 'zombies' even though they have literally no downsides besides having to keep the soul gem safe. But anyway this is part of what drives Sayaka to madness, and I'm supposed to sympathize but simply cant because everyone is faaaar to nice. And other things. So her wish was to see bedridden Kyosuke well again and able to play the violin, however Hitomi, bearing in mind she is someone ignorant of magical girls, decides to reveal her crush for him. Lucky git. However Hitomi states very, VERY clearly that she is going to let Sayaka have first shot, because Sayaka has basically known and looked after him longer. However, she cannot face him because of the whole zombie thing. I think the quote is 'I cant face him with this body! I'm a monster!' or something to that effect. WOMAN. THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE AND HITOMI ISN'T STEALING HIM AWAY. STOP BEING DUMB. I could understand if her body aged faster or her life span was shorter, or she couldn't feel sexual stimulation or began to loose her emotions, but nah. The only difference is she cant feel pain. Actually, if she cant physically feel as much pain anymore, maybe she cant feel anything, at all? So it is sexual stimulation... and everything falls into place. But that isn't stated, so it's more likely that they're all just overreacting and she's dumb.
Actually, a lot of the despair they feel can be attributed to them finding out more and more dark secrets about how the magical girl system actually operates, and Kyubey's role. He 'tricked' them apparently. However it wasn't until the last episode that I really took the girl's concern's seriously. I said Kyubey was the best character, and thats because he is such a troll without even realizing it. Kyubey is a being of utter logic, he doesn't have any real character flaws, yet he is essentially the main villain. He uses magical girls as a sort of energy source for the universe, and as such their fate is to be essentially livestock for the universe's continued existence. Sounds evil but unlike the anti spirals, Kyubey and by extension his people are so reasonable about it that I cannot help but laugh as the girls ostracize him for his decisions. He's entertaining simply because his explanations behind his actions made me laugh almost as much as anything seen in a comedy like family guy, he's so totally right! I'm a bad person...
Kyubey: Doesn't force magical girls to become magical girls, or even persist to much. He is always trying to convince Madoka, he hangs around casting shadows everywhere hence why I called him intimidating, however he never gets impatient or angry. He could wait for an eternity, and couldn't care less if a girl like Madoka he has interest in ever makes a contract. Even when foiled, he doesn't really care. They never make him cheap. When the girls discover dark truths, they're like 'why did you trick us?' and he's like 'it doesn't matter either way. It's beneficial in the end. Also, it was your own decision and I followed through on my end of the deal. Besides, you never asked.' So many justifications, not out of ego, like, say, Adachi from persona 4, but out of LOGIC. And this basically persists throughout the entire series. His eyes are piercing, his voice while high pitched is never too fast or too slowed, and not exactly squeaky or annoying, and he talks with the calm of... well, Kyubey. A robot, perhaps. Or a slower version of Daniel Floyd from Extra credits. Good job voice actor! Even during the endings he seems more intrigued more than anything else, and quickly adapts his tactics to the new rules set out. Finally, KAAAAAWAAAAAAAI! I think thats what Otaku's say when something is so adorable.
While I was close to naming this an anime wherein the villain is faaar too perfect for me to truly take the main character's and thus the entire show's morals seriously, the girl's ultimate solution ends in a final episode of confusion, which is weird considering how regularly the show bludgeons you with 'the point' up until then, but ultimately while the final episode is 'meta' I cried and was happy with the final result. No loose plot threads, even the more incongruous stuff was explained even if it did stretch my suspension of disbelief, however the most insane explanations came curtsy of Kyubey and I never doubt his words so ultimately, the story gets a thumbs up overall even if the story came much to close to having me laugh of the girl's pretty concerns. That was a close one, don't try anything so reckless ever again! May not be so lucky next time, Madoka.

So at last, we have our first good magical girl anime! REJOICE! I'm pretty sure Madoka magica isn't going to be the definitive title of the genre. It's cuteness and naieve characters come far to close to undermining the story, however Kyubey and the development they all eventually get, along with the final episode which was simply stunning help define Madoka as a shining jewel among the shredded paper pile that is the genre, however I think the best magical girl anime will simply be a complete sheet of paper. That will stand out among the shreds. Madoka may or may not have been better if they had simply ripped out the magical girl aesthetic and replaced it, but whatever I shant wish for stupid risks. Madoka magica is fantastic in it's own right and at only 12 episodes is worth a watch. No excuse me, I have a Kyubey plushy to save money for.

www.amazon.com/Puella-Madoka-Magica-Kyubey-Plush/dp/B0054NGO8A

[Deleted]

This is it guys, the big one. One of the most popular anime of the year has ended and I've got a lot to cover.
First, since I said I would, basic run down:

Synopsis:

Its roughly 2020 in japan and the first fully virtual reality MMO, Sword Art Online (SAO), is hitting shelves and all 10,000 preorder copies have sold out. Kirito, our hero, was a beta tester and naturally preordered. He plugs himself into the game to discover that he cant log out, and the creator, Kayaba Akihiko has locked them into the game and the only way out is to beat the final boss of the game on the 100th floor of SAO. And a death in the game equates to one in real life.


Pros:
- Genuine passion for the story, great romance and likeable characters
- Really good art, music, and fight scenes
- Show rarely ever feels repetitive, scenery changes regularly and new characters turn up every few episodes or so.
- Popular and influential. May not sound like much, but there's going to be much discussion about this one in the anime community. Its worth watching this and accel world just to join in discussion and see where future animes take concepts from these two shows.

Cons:
- Has trouble balancing the wishful thinking of the original creator and trying to portray a realistic view of how virtual reality would effect people in the real world
- Many characters get introduced and quickly shelved, leading to little development and makes it hard to give a damn about most of them. The first few episodes are like this.
- Kirito is likeable but ultimately bland. Asuna is also likeable, and a strong female character, but she has what I like to call 'Nia syndrome', as in she gets shelved and used as a plot device and reward for the second half of the show. This prevents her from being a truly strong character.
- Trying too hard with the villain in the second half. Second half also suffers from being incredibly scattered with plot points and motivations.

The review- Spoilers everywhere.

Sword Art Online is one of the biggest animes this year and it has gained as many fans as haters as many popular things do. I'm in the minority, somewhere in the middle. SAO is a great show with lots going for it but occasionally it has an odd atmosphere surrounding it.
I don't know who wrote the light novels the anime was based on, but between this and Accel World I can feel the author behind the story, more so than any other show, in fact. It's a singular vision, and that's part of what makes the show so special. However, it is odd, like a stranger wondering up to you and explaining breathlessly their inner most thoughts and feelings, their dreams, morals and predictions. It's fascinating but as a different person, you're bound to have some problems with their morals in the fine details. Not to mention it is incredibly awkward.
Kirito from SAO feels like an idealised vision of the creator inside the virtual world, where as I feel Haruyuki from Accel world is more honest, as in he's fat and socially awkward. Kayaba Akihiko, an antagonist and creator of the titular MMO, feels like what the creator would do were he given the opportunity to create an MMO, though that may be stretching it, the kinder treatment of the character near the end of the show makes this more obvious to me. Furthermore, Asuna from SAO and Yukihime from Accel world feel like idealized lovers that he meets through the game, and main antagonist Sugou from SAO and Nomi from Accel World feel like the completely unlikeable vermin who ruin the fantasy for everyone else. The intellectual honesty from both shows is really what makes the show feel good- each character represents something, and he's telling a story. Of course, a fantasy can get awkward and in both shows his attempts at character development are either laughable cliff notes or quickly negated, he's honest but its still ultimately wish fulfillment.

Anyway the show seems to be split into two halves, the SAO arc is great and sets up Kirito, Asuna, and a few other characters. However it piddles about for the first few episodes, introducing characters that are never seen again. These were apparently side stories, but it really irked me that Asuna didn't truly become a regular character until roughly episode 6, and nothing really happens in the first few episodes. One part that irked me was someone who was introduced and killed within the same episode, it's odd because I wasn't given enough time to really care. It also feels a bit like a harem at first which sucks, Kirito seems to be a magnet for the women, which doesn't feel as though it should fit within the realms of the plot.
However the show picks up fairly quickly when Asuna is introduced. They both start exchanging angry banter like every other couple in everything ever, but the thing I liked was that whereas everything ever would normally have them fall in love at the end, Kirito and Asuna form a genuine love or each other very quickly, and actually settle down, get married in game, and have a kid together. Well, its more like adoption however the symbolic implications are still present. Nice change of pace, and since they spend most of their time hating each other in a year long time skip, it doesn't feel like an unrealistic Romeo and Juliet love at first sight plot device, even if it seems quick to the audience.
However Kirito himself is... not dull, I guess, but certainly static. He never truly gets any development, SAO is about him learning to be a team player, because he works alone without joining any guilds at first leading to player deaths, but even after that he continues exactly the same as before even when he has an internal monologue trying to show that he learned the lesson. He quits any guilds he may join for the duration of one episode. Kirito truly is an idealised persona of the creator, always perfect and never changing his demeanor even when being honest with himself.
A great thing about the SAO arc is the idea of virtual reality replacing actual reality, with people forming better lives in a world they're forced to live in and some refusing to aid in the game's completion. I think the creators ultimate thesis was 'weather it be the real world or a game, life is essentially the same' and what I liked about SAO was that when your life is at risk, something as inherently meaningless as a video game suddenly gains meaning when your life is at stake. Kirito and Asuna also have anxiety over completing the game, both desiring to stay together in their cozy family life since they don't know each other in real life. It's all really cute and heartfelt.

However, things get interesting but ultimately worse when the show switches MMOs and becomes Alfheim Online (AO) in episode 15, a separate MMO running on SAO's code. Here, Kirito actually can leave for the real world since SAO was anti-climatically completed in episode 14, which somewhat negates the idea that SAO destroyed many lives since he is very quickly able to re adapt but whatever there is a time skip, and he gets a new female partner, Leafa!
While death is now no longer a problem, the show presents another instance in which virtual reality has meaning. Asuna gets kidnapped by AO's admin, Sugou, otherwise known as fairy king Oberon. And like Nomi he's a despicable villain, attempting to use virtual reality as mind control. Which raises the question- I know people are already in a vulnerable state, hooked up to the internet a in a helmet, but I don't think an MMO would be the best place to study something as big as mind control. What baffles me is that he's studying it with staff atop the great tree that's on the servers. Its made impossible to reach, but I would have expected the government to be able to monitor coding on a public server. Not to mention there must be much more direct ways to control someones mind than a video game. But whatever, he has Asuna in a cage so a 'save the girl' plot line opens up, not to mention Leafa is actually Kirito's sister (But not actually his sister! See, makes the incest so much less creepy!) Sugu in real life, who has a crush on her brother, whilst also unaware that the person she's traveling with in game is Kirito despite him looking identical online and in real life.
Sugu is fine, she can do whatever and her arc is fine if a little sad considering Kirito only has Asuna to think about, but I have something else I dislike about the design of AO.
The idea here is that player killing is encouraged and there are 6 races split into factions and territories, and there's this tree in the center of the game. The first race that reaches the city atop the tree meets fairy king Oberon, and is transformed into a race that don't have a limit on flight (you have wings in AO, with a time limit I never noticed.) The entrance to the city however is guarded by enemies so strong that only the combined might of all 6 races could break through it, so there's the dilemma. The game's design is genius- a player driven story that teaches them to set aside their inherent differences so that at least someone can receive their just reward. This teaches them about the importance of co-operation on a national scale in a naturally engaging environment. And for viewers watching SAO, this is also what it would have been.
However, the game isn't that. The prize is a lie and it's not possible to enter Oberon's domain which is a lab, not a city. Since Oberon designed the game, it raises a question- why design it like this in the first place?
If the idea was to keep the 6 races squabbling while he completed his mind control research, fine, but it's impossible to enter the realm anyway without admin privileges so so much for that. Makes the guardians useless too. Why make the place your trying to keep secret a place of desire? Just make the tree a set piece you cant climb up and make it a day. Better yet, perform your research in the real world where it's much safer, containing no morons swinging around a virtual sword who can appear and ruin literally everything. I understand a central part of his character is that he treats the virtual landscape as an outlet for fantasies of godhood, but please not even he should be that stupid. Not to mention, he may like Asuna but taunting the person who killed a system Admin in a previous game, and the adoration of many people may not be the best idea either.
Also, a small thing I liked about the SAO arc was that it felt like an actual MMO, with menus, stats, and notices showing levels and all that jazz. Sometimes when a character is thrown against a wall, a pop up would appear reading 'cannot hurt inanimate object' which cemented this as a gaming experience, not a Narnia esc fantasy world. AO shows much less of this, so there isn't as many subtle reminders that this isn't reality like the first arc, AO simply feels much more like a fantasy world than a game, and no amount of jargon really helped this. Episode 24 was good in reminding us of it being a fantasy, however.

*Sigh* AO had much potential but Sugou (Oberon) is overplayed and it becomes less a story about virtual reality and more a story of Kirito using his righteous justice to defeat a villain and win the girl. Episode 24 has Sugou preparing to rape Asuna in front of a paralyised Kirito and it's just trying too hard, and while nothing terrible is shown the implications make the scene really difficult to watch when you consider no such violent sexual elements had been present in the show up until that point. His death also feels less like the epic duel between player and Admin present in the first arc and more a righteous beat down, as when Kirito is granted Admin privileges from Kayaba he is able to humiliate Sugou and kill him, in game. The slow movements and Sugou's pathetic swings and tears made Kirito look incredibly psychotic, in a quiet, 'I can do whatever I want to you because I'm right' kind of way. Nomi in Accel World died like this too but at least immediately before hand they had a really cool duel, and it felt more like Haru was putting down a lost soul, someone who turned out to be a nicer person without the game, a victim of a terrible and tragic upbringing rather than someone with no redeemable qualities. This scene also undermines development Kirito had not long before the battle, where he laments that his strength isn't his own will but merely meaningless numbers, setting up the what should have been 'willpower over arbitrary designation' message which would have made a perfect parallel to the real world's social hierarchy. Instead, Kiritio wins based on the same arbitrary designation Sugou granted to him in a true deus ex machina moment, simply because Kirito was a more deserving person, allegedly.

The final episode was good at contrasting the false violence of the game compared to the reality of real life. The pain limiters in game prevented players from feeling actual pain when fighting but Kirito kills Sugou when they are turned off, which meant that it affected Sugou's real body somehow, but nonetheless when Sugou tries to kill Kirito in the real world the scene feels much more gruesome. There's actual blood for a start, in the game there wasn't any blood whatsoever, and of course you cant pull off ninja moves or fly while looking awesome. Finally, unlike in AO Kirito was aware that he couldn't kill Sugou in real life, which is a great illustration of what is acceptable in fantasy and actual society. In essence, they had a final battle in both worlds, one in fantasy, and one that was real. And it was awesome.

At last there's a weird part of the ending where they understandably state that VRMMOs became a dead genre after the SAO and AO incidents, however its changed when apparently in the same time frame a free software appeared created by the villain of the first arc appears on the net allowing anyone to create a virtual game world, whereupon all the charters meet in a combination of SAO and AO for a finale. This is what I mean by realism vs wish fulfillment, VRMMOs died in the same time frame as them becoming one of the biggest things ever? Did I fast forward through the plot or something? No, I didn't.

Well, that was Sword Art Online and I thought it was great. It's special, weather or not that means 'timeless classic' special or 'special needs' special is in the eyes of the beholder. Many, many plot holes, inconsistencies, awkward scenes and wasted opportunities, but it's so genuine that I cant help but admire the creators effort and energy, and I've never met the guy and I may be totally of base with what I think of him, but I've learned so much about a person through their work before. Which, I may add, is the heart and soul of all art.

[Deleted]

The more I think about this amazing anime the more I love it. The more I think about it, the more snooty pretentious reasons I come up with for naming it close to perfect, only falling short due to it's length and some missed opportunities, and because I simply like other animes more such as fullmetal alchemist.
The show gets a lot of backlash for many things. But I praise it for those very things. Its Cliche's only reinforce its core points, and create something that feels so unique and energetic and secretly genius that even though I didn't realize it at the time because I was having such a blast, I think I knew on a subconscious level why I loved it.

So, with that out of the way, its time for a super in depth analysis of just what it is that makes this anime feel so right. Not so much a review, as it is me picking this thing apart to find the magic, and find some missed oppotunities that stop it from being pretty much my favorite anime ever. You know, were it not for FMA and Steins;gate. Yeah TTGL is my 3rd favorite anime now. Before I begin, lets start with a plot summary in case we all forgot. (Spoilers Ahoy!) I'll try to be quick.

Simon and Kamina live in an underground village where they must dig all day. Prior to the story, Simon's parents had been killed in a rockslide. Kamina wants to head to the surface like his Dad did, but their cheif prohibits it. A gundam and a girl called Yoko fall down from the surface, and together along with a robot Kamina calls Lagann, a gundam Simon found while digging along with a drill that acts like a key, they defeat the gundam. Yoko is part of a resistance against beastmen from the neighboring underground village litner. Beastmen reside in the gundams, and are created by the ruler of the planet, the spiral king, and they keep humans underground.
Simon and Kamina join the resistance, steal a gundam Kamina names Gurren, which can combine with Lagann to create the titular Gurren Lagann, Lagann being seemingly able to combine with any mech and make it stronger.

The resistance builds momentum and during a crucial operation taking an enemy gundam, Kamina dies. This sends everyone especially Simon into great depression, who vows revenge on beastmen but has regardless lost spirit. He finds a princess of the spiral king named Nia soon after, who had been thrown out because she questioned her existence. Through Nia and the memories of Kamina encouraging him, Simon mans up and becomes epic. He takes leadership of the resistance and beats up the spiral king. The spiral king leaves a warning, saying that once the population exceeds 1 million (I think it was somewhere around there) The moon will bring destruction.

Time skip, civilization is advancing and Simon is essentially ruler of the world, or 'supreme commander' of Kamina city. Population goes over limit, and Nia goes crazy and informs the human race that the the 'anti-spirals' will now destroy earth. The moon threatens to fall, Simon gets blamed, and the new commander Rossiu attempts to evacuate earth. They cant do it in time, but Simon is sprung free and flies into the center of the moon, which turns out to be the spiral king's old spaceship, and stops it falling by turning it back into a spaceship using Lagann. Simon and the old gang take the ship and search for the anti-spiral home world to end them. As they travel they learn that spiral energy is basically evolution power, and that the anti-spirals are a spiral race that realised that spiral energy will cause the universe to implode, and as such repress other spiral races. Mechs get bigger, sacrifices are made, and eventually Simon saves Nia and beats them up during the best fight in anime history. Nia however is an anti-spiral and as such dies soon after return and marrige to Simon, whereupon Simon fades into legend and tries to make sure the universe doesn't explode from too much spiral energy.

And thats the gist of it. Thats incredibly condensed and I'll look into more specific scenes but yeah, basically.
You may notice that it doesn't really have that many exciting twists. Kaminas death is a shock and dramatically shifts the plot, as is the reveal of the anti-spirals, but generally once all that is sorted out it shouldn't be too hard to work out who wins and why. Sort of.
See, the ideas are so huge and well presented that I was constantly on the edge of my seat. The plot its self is actually quite complex, rich detail and questionable morality and such. However, its characters are over the top cliches (Kamina is a sendup of the annoyingly optimistic hero, Simon is incredibly pathetic at first, Nia is unbearably cute etc) And the story follows the www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWKKRbw-e4U to the letter, which in some way adds to the predictability of the story I suppose.

But... really, it just works, right?
Its so over the top and takes its self so seriously, especially after the 8th episode, that you cant help but care. Its actually absurd, its taking it's cliche's so seriously that it actually ends up becoming unique. It has so much energy that each stage of the journey and character's development has the same weight I'm sure it must have been when stories were old. Most stories wouldn't have the confidence to be so in your face, most stories following such a structure with such characters would come across as boring. But not Gurren Lagann. And, besides its genuine emotion and energy, there is a very good reason why.

Most stories involve a 'dramatic question' these are questions like 'will the hero defeat the villain and save the world' and it happens all the time. Usually, a story may end up being boring if we can answer this question the moment it's asked. "Yes, yes he will save the world. Now I don't need to watch the rest, right?" we can answer this because of Cliche's. In other words, the question has been answered in other stories already.
Now, Gurren Lagann doesn't do much to differentiate its self from this for a long time. However, before what I shall foreshadow as 'the second question' arises, they manage to keep the viewer's interest by keeping up ambiguity all the same. We know that the spiral king and the beastmen are bad and repress humans, but why? And we're led to believe that there may be something more to him, too, which there is. The first few episodes are also more about fun, character building, and enjoying Kamina more than anything else anyway so the question takes a back seat. All we know is that we want the heroes to win. Then Kamina dies, and all that is on your mind is 'How in the hell will everyone recover from that? I know I cant." Its so depressing that you wonder why the whole plot even matters anymore when the most enthusiastic ball of energy is gone, the only person who managed to get the resistance as strong as it is at the time. This makes Simon's reawakening all the more awesome, because not only is it Simon finally manning up- its the awesomeness returning to the series, and then everything powers towards the spiral king.
But no, those are mere distractions from my point. That's not the genius.
The second question is proposed at the arrival of the anti-spirals, and is not easily answered. Yes, "SHOULD the hero defeat the villain and save the world?" The spiral king used to be identical in ideals to our heroes, but he eventually decided upon "no, no I shouldn't. I shouldn't destroy the universe for the sake of humans." As did the anti-spirals, who also used to be like our heroes, nay, better.
This is what makes the series great. See what it's doing? It's not using its cliches in order to string along a bunch of energetic scenes, (and it is doing that too) its doing it to reinforce the second question- the first question, the original, easily answerable cliche, is irrelevant because it depends on the answer to the second question, and as such the series suddenly has much more weight lent to it, and becomes more unpredictable in a sense. You kinda know that Simon is going to win, the series is far to epic in the second half to end in depression, but the answer is still something that the viewer looks forward to being justified.
What I'm trying to say is, it uses its core aesthetic and structure to make a point rarely made- should the heroes win? In the context of gurren lagann, the answer seems to be no at first. Its after the end and when you look back that the answer becomes 'yes' but its still a pretty good debate either way. It does this through visual metaphors (Drills represent spiral energy, which I'm sure is obvious) and speech, and Simon's lines in the final episode "Locking yourself away like some kind of king, that's nobodies limitation but your own!" "We'll defeat you and stop the spiral nemesis!" and one of my favorites "My drill is the drill that creates the heavens!"

Finally, one last thing to note is that in a show about evolution, everything evolves. Everything. Mechs get bigger, colours get brighter (brown deserts then bright, multi-colored stars in space) older characters, bigger ideas, bigger battles, more absurd speech, bigger and better sound (Row row fight the power changing to Libra m from hell, for instance) and literally everything evolves. Not necessarily gets better, although I certinly think it does, but get bigger? Sure. The series starts at the lowest point for a human, digging in an underground claustrophobic environment, then fighting in mechs the size of galaxies in space. I don't think I've seen another anime so large in scale, both in terms of how big it goes and how small it starts. Not to mention we essentially see every character's entire lives. Simon for instance has virtually no backstory at the beginning, a naive child, and the last time we see him he is an old man. I love complete lives being documented in these plots, so epic, and fitting for a show literally about the evolution of the universe and the individual.
My favorite part about the evolution aspect is that overall how its presented conveys to me that despite how large things get, its ultimately the people who matter. The drill as evolution metaphore origionally confused me 'if its about evolution, then surely the largest part of the drill would be used instead of the tip? You know, hold it at the tip or something to showcase your advancement'. But the thing is... the tip is the person, and the large part of the drill behind it is simply your baggage. Its the tip that hits the enemy and does the drilling, in other words, the person using the drill. The final battle does this very well, the image of the two universe sized drills attacking each other, their tips colliding is simply perfect. Then, every mech gets shown as its broken away, going back in reverse order until only Lagann remains. Every step of Simon's evolution is shown. In the movie, the best thing ever happens where unlike in the anime where Lagann delivers the final blow, Simon is left to have a fist fight with the anti-spiral. What was previously goosebumps wide smiled awesomeness ends in something so incredibly tense! Every blow has a ton of weight, its done in complete and utter silence and the blood flies everywhere. Seriously, just watch that thing and try not to bite your nails. It ends when Simon's blood, in other words his lifeforce, becomes a drill which he uses to defeat the anti-spiral. Not a mech or advancement in humanities evolution, just HIM.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm1VJ77ZU3I&list=FLfFDE_VgOoPFQrDlHkIPuiA&index=6 Try about 4:50


Anyway, I should probably end on some negatives.
First, the length. I don't think it needed to continue past the anti-spirals, no, but it probably needed several things-
1) A proper epilogue episode rather than something tacked onto the end of the final battle. That thing was so epic that you really need a clam down before you round things off.
2) An episode detailing the Anti-spirals past. I wanted to know about their civilization before deciding to repress the other spiral races, and how they found out about spiral energy destroying the universe. I think the only thing preventing them from becoming essentially perfect villans is individual character. Who is the person who appears to represent their race? A hologram representing their shared conciousness? In that case why does he have physical presence? Whatever...
3) An episode detailing the Spiral king's defeat and life before the anti-spirals. They kinda do this at the beginning of the film and an OVA I think, but they missed out on showing us exactly how Earth fell into the state its in today.
4) An episode or some other small scene showing Nia among the other princesses and the spiral king. Needed to create more sympathy and give her more scenes with her father. Also something to explain why she is an anti-spiral life form. That makes no sense, unless it was implanted or something...
5) Most importantly, some more fun episodes in the beginning for more Kamina, more awesome scenes with Simon in the beginning, and most of all an episode between Kamina's death and Nia's arrival. We need time to let his death sink in, having a replacement character so soon afterwards is hard to swallow (I died a little inside when she replaced Kamina in the opening credits) even if I do really like her.

Next: Nia. She was grosely mishandled throughout the series in my eyes. Why she was an anti-spiral aside, they show her as being a strong character despite her nativity and ignorance, standing up to the beastmen who captured her (including slapping one at one point) and being generally pretty awesome despite her 'moe' type personality. However, we don't get enough time to see her in the second half and she becomes a trophy for Simon more than a character who contributes, and she looses much of what made her strong. She talks big to the anti-spiral but doesn't do much against him. Granted, she is tied up, but she could at least spit or struggle a bit more. The writers could come up with something, as it is she appears weak. And in the movie I could swear what was previously just the anti-spial grabbing her head to absorb information was full blown rape. Eww writers, don't put that crap in there.
Her anti-spiral persona is fine, shows she has emotion, but it drags on and because of it she never gets time with Simon in the second half. I need to care about them getting married, I only cared in the first half when it was about Nia restoring Simon's confidence.

Overall, Gurren Lagann starts to fall flat when you look at the small details. But the small details aren't what the show is about, its about the large details and I'm willing to put up with some niggling oddities if it meant they could craft the bigger details properly. Who knows, maybe if those changes had been implemented the pacing may have been destroyed or created more inconsistencies which would ruin the series. As it is its fine, and its not about the small picture. This is the big picture, a work of art in it's own right that used the very best paint which unfortunately went a little bit over the guidelines to create some smudges if you look to hard. The further you standback however, the grander it becomes. Its animes like Steins;gate in which you put your face right up close to the picture to see how expertly crafted every small detail was, and how many you can spot the more you look at it. But Gurren Lagann is not that, rather, the opposite as stated.

As I close down, remember this:
If the anti-spirals had their way, there would be no show. Simon and Kamina would sit around in the village accomplishing nothing. On the other hand, I think the spiral nemesis is real. What happens when every story ends? Its universe ends. That is what is meant by spiral nemesis, when the story can go no further, it ends. Is it better to not start and live in comfort, or have a journey that inevitably leads in self destruction? That is what this show is about. The individual, the narrative, the journey.

[Deleted]

Ok time for a review of the anime series Mnemosyne!
Would you believe that Mnemosyne was actually one of the first anime series I encountered on the internet? Yes, before Soul Eater even. However, Soul eater was still the first anime I ever actually watched. However it was when reading through TV tropes before I knew that you could watch anime free on the internet that I found this series, I glanced at the wikipedia article and watched the opening, but I was using a wii because I didn't have computer and I was unaware that I could actually watch it, so I forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
...
And boy am I glad I waited, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been prepared for a show like this back at that age.

Mnemosyne is a 6 episode anime, and while that seems like no time at all, each episode is strangely 40 minuets long which puts it on par with a 12 episode anime. This, as you could imagine, makes every anime feel like the length of a short film, which can be kind of draining, making me only want to watch 1 or 2 episodes a session. But you know what? Each episode kind of works as it's own short story.
Before I explain that statement lets dive headfirst into story.
Rin is our main character, a female detective who reminds me of Bayoneta. She never does much detective work though... anyway she has her friend Mimi, a young and not particularly bubbly genius computer hacker.
The twist is that they're both immortal, they've in fact been alive longer than either care to talk about, and this is due to something called 'Yggdrasil' the tree of live, which appears every now and then but is invisible to immortals. When it appears it also distributes time fruits, which are also invisible to humans. Sometimes a time fruit will make their way into a female, making them immortal and impervious to death. Even if they get sliced up, they'll regenerate give some time. They still feel pain though. But seriously, you could reduce them to a pool of blood and dust and they'd come out fine. Notice how I said women, for if a time fruit enters a male, they do not become immortal. Instead, they turn into Angels, beings of supernatural strength with grotesque wings and a monsterous appearence, appearing more demonic. They don't live for long but they usually have an uncontrolable urge to have sex with female immortals, and during this sex they will eat the female and their time fruit, thus they are the only beings that can kill an imortal woman. Unfortunately for the immortal women, whenever an angel is nearby they feel a similar urge to have sex with them. In both cases, it can be controlled, but Angels have a much harder time of it, becoming slobbering beasts for the most part.
Add in a huge conspiracy stretching across time under the thumb of our villain Apos, and what we have is a pretty kickass but also somewhat distrubing set up.
It does sound like a set up for a particuarly sadistic hentai doesn't it? And yes, there is no defence for this show in that regard, despite the fact that there are no full on sex scenes for very long and that there is much more to the story than that, there is still lots of sadisitc and sexual moments, from torture, sex, nudity, boob shots, and an overall look that screms dark themes and sexuality. Thankfully, most of the show keeps everyone clothed until it counts, Rin's usual attire being that of a suit, it's not perfect, for instance there's an informant regularly used in the show who asks for payment with hot lesbian sex rather than money. You also get numb to many of the shows violent moments, after you've seen Rin 'die' so many times eventually you start to grow numb to it even as the show tries desperately to one up it's self. There are also plenty of quiet moments to tell the story.

... It's just too bad the story is very awkwardly paced, and overall a bit of a mess. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the main themes and elements in place. For instance, the first episode takes place in 1990 or so, eventually ending in 2055. You see the world change an evolve around the static characters of Rin and Mimi, including characters aging and technological advances, (2055 is actually pretty psycho-passish whereas 1990 is as you'd expect) furthermore I like the theme of sexuality, it's these immortal women's ultimate weakness. They've seen and endured lots of suffering, pain, death, loss, and have become hardened for the most part- but their primal, bestial nature is the only thing that can kill them in the most humiliating of ways, furthermore it's the Angels who are more sex crazed. But, it's a mess. Every episode is, as I said, a short film, virtually self contained, however when trying it all together it's pretty crap. Apos doesn't seem to do anything until the last episode, occasionally you'll see him playing chess with an immortal female he has in bondage, but he doesn't seem to do anything relevant. He'll also ocassionally talk to someone who isn't relevant until the last episode. This stops Apos from being one of my favorite villains, because what he actually is will probably send you for a few disturbing loops, especially in the way it's revealed. Not to mention, he's got that sadistic, emotionally detached personality which I love in a character. The show just doesn't give him anything interesting to do until it's too late. Maybe I should go back and have a look at those older scenes. Furthermore the characters Rin meets are flat out uninteresting, Rin usually meets a male and the story focuses around that man, except he is usually incredibly bland, then next episode we'll see them being unimportant over to the side, and they've also aged. This makes way for a new man next episode, who goes through nearly all the same motions as the first man. I admit their deaths are pretty well done and their relevance at the end is pretty cool if a little confusing, but they leave a hollow feeling. Rin, too, is ill defined, sometimes seeming badass, sometimes seeming nice, tortured, occasionally she seems to be desiring male comfort even when nowhere near an Angel and... well, there is only one male that she loves who isn't relvant until the very end. It's nice that she devots herself only to one person who she loves but isn't totally obsessed with, communicating with him via phone in secret, making the Angels seem like even more of a threat symbolically but the feeling the two have is somewhat hollow and they lack chemistry because they have NO moments until the end, which, spoiler alert, is a sex scene. I'm also not entirely sure how she's able to resist the Angels, she shows just as much pain and lust at their presence, but out of all the immortal women in this show who are quick to give into the Angels, she seems to be the only one who can kill them. And, oddly, she can usually kill these superhuman with a knife, once even with a sharp branch, which feels inconsistent considering at one point someone uses a stun gun on an angel and it does absolutely nothing. Usually an Angel death involves her kissing the angel, as the angel prepares to kill her, and even as they begin having sex she is slowly killing it. Those are good scenes, intense and funny, but I don't know why Rin is the only one capable of this. Mimi doesn't even have to deal with an Angel, always lucky enough to be dragged away by someone else or able to slink away quietly while Rin deals with the Angel. Speaking of Mimi, while I like her character, similar to Apos she has very little to do, and I'm never sure if she's supposed to be serious (or slightly tsundre like)or cute and bubbly. She certainly looks cute and bubbly, but they usually give her stern facial expressions which say otherwise. And no, this doesn't come across as particuarly commplex, which is odd for someone whose immortal, neither she or Rin appear older than their age. Mostly, Mimi serves as the character who gets Rin out of trouble, or a damsel in distress near the end, but mostly exposition because she can get data on anything. Most of the time she sits around doing nothing while Rin is out infiltrating enemy hideouts, as if on standby for when the writers need her.
"Uh oh, how will Rin get out of this one?"
"BRING IN THE MIMI!"
And finally while each episode being like a short film sounds impressive... I honestly find most of the early episodes to be incredibly bland, and I honestly couldn't follow them. Ygrassil sits there and doesn't get explained until episode, the central conflict usually involving crime organisations don't feel like they have actual plots to them. I cant remember the motivations of anyone in the early episodes, due to a lack of detail. It gets a lot better when technology advances past our present time of 2013, going a little but sci-fi, as I said, psycho-passish with holographic clothes and such. Actually, before what appears to be a hologram based society, episode 4 I believe deals with virtual reality (named 2.0 with reality as 1.0) and a rouge, Yandere AI with a cool backstory. That episode was awesome and I followed that, even the male seemed to have a point in that episode. Episodes 4, 5, and 6 were actually really good and episode 3 wasn't too bad either although I cant really remember it. And, don't get me wrong, episodes 1 and 2 weren't bad, they had good scenes but I just couldn't follow the reason behind the good scenes.
Finally, episode 6 while good was a little rushed, with too many twists which had been built up since the beginning were finally revealed in very quick and difficult to follow exposition dumps, although unlike the early episodes I got the gist of them even if I had to pause for a second to collect my thoughts. The ultimate purpose behind the show, and Rin's ultimate character strength which allows her to do what she does, trying desperately not to give away too much, is really cool if a little confusing and some may interpret it the wrong way.

Overall there are some weird moments and the story is a bit of a mess, it's also pretty sexy and psychotic which I like but some of it made me feel uncomfortable, mainly towards the end and I will say now that most people wont like it because of those reasons alone. Even I, with my high tolerance for gore and sex felt somewhat uncomfortable, so watch at your own risk.
My main problems are however the pacing of the story and some of the characters, who, while memorable (oddly enough) have mostly weak and poorly utilised personalities, which places this show low on my list of favorites. It is however unique and entertaining, so by all means give it a watch if you have the time, if not for the darker content, then perhaps for the awesome opening and ending themes and good, if aging animation and art designs. A fun, short watch.

[Deleted]

My god did I hate this anime when I first started watching it... I kinda found it by accident with no priror knowledge to it whatsoever, but I thought it looked interesting and gave it a shot. Pretty quickly, the show had proved it's self to be incredibly unplesent to watch- I have watched other animes such as Mnemosyne above which had unplensent themes and imagery, but that didn't make watching it unplesent. However, I really hated each of the characters immediately- our main character treats no one with respect, especially not his mother who also looks like a zombie, and is also a terrible person in her own right for reasons I'll get to.
However, by the end of the season... it's just about clawed it's way up to my favorite anime pile. I'm going to be changing the format of this review slightly because I think I may need more focus and better structure for this thing, so lets get started.

Synopsis

Our protagionist Sakamoto is a 22 year old japanese NEET who plays a very popular game called Btoom in the near future. It's not virtual reality, it's a game much like call of duty (he even seems to be playing on what seems to be an Xbox 720) except it uses cooler character designs and a variety of bombs each with their own quirks to defeat opponents with, as opposed to the more traditional guns. He is one of the top ranked players in the world, and also has an online wife called Himiko.
However he suddenly wakes up on a tropical, deserted island at one point with no clue as to how he got there. He has these bombs on him that look like the ones from his favorite game, and heck they actually work like them too! Turns out he and a bunch of other guys are stuck in a death match that functions just like Btoom, except it's in reality and they're on a tropical island in their regular clothes, and that they must kill 7 other people for the chips attached to their hand in order to leave.

Character

... oh boy, Sakamoto starts out as a... a terrible, terrible person. Sure, there are many others like Light yagami (who Sakamoto looks very similar to actually, same animation company apparently) except Light and Lelouch and Yuno Gasai and all the rest may be crazy psychopaths, but they're likeable because they're good goals twisted good. Justice, world reformation, love; and furthermore they are so delightfully insane that we cant help but be caught up in their madness right alongside them. Sakamoto... is 22, and he doesn't have a job or proper education, he's been trying to get the same job which he clearly isn't qualified for for years, a job at the company who made Btoom, and most of all treats everyone who isn't an online buddy with contempt. His mother tries to get him a job and he throws his remote controller at her, barely missing and leaving a great big hole in the fu**ing wall.
I could maybe understand if he were a teenager, but he's 22 and should know better. Another similar character to him is Sato from Welcome to the NHK, although Sato has an inferiority complex and demands isolation, living away from his mother, but he does generally try his best to be nice to people when he has to be. Plus he's really funny!
And when he reaches the island, during the first episode he is a complete dumbass. He clicks a button on a bomb he should be very familiar with, sees a very obvious timer counting down, and throws it away because he has 'a bad feeling' before it explodes. Later on when in the heat of battle, he apparently doesn't realise that the timer which he had activated himself earlier was a countdown towards the bomb exploding.
WHAT!?!?! WHAT!
I know protagionists sometimes have to have the same knowledge as the audience, which is true here, his discoveries are our discoveries, but when he's behind us it's infuriating, and it's not like he's Yukiteru or something, someone with less self confidence than mud, he has only slightly below average confidence and when he works things out is fairly effective at dispatching foes. But yes, he is a normal person, probably disorientated and confused, then again so am I, and I worked out the timer bomb in a second whilst in a peaceful condition, and the first time he used a bomb he did to so bleh. Bleh!

Next up is Himiko- the love interest and she is so inovative. Listen to this, it's great:
She got betrayed by men and no longer trusts them! Oh noes! But Sakamoto saves her and he is such a nice guy... maybe, just maybe, he is the person she met online, the only male she ever loved, but oh she doesn't know! But maybe he could be the one male she could trust... but she hates them! But she loves them...
Ok to be fair, that sounds incredibly generic and incredibly predictable, and it is, but she has genuine reason to hate men.
See she and a bunch of her friends got lured into the wrong crowd before reaching the island, and it led to a bunch of her friends... getting raped. Yeah. Bet you'd never see that sort of plot points. She was about to get raped, but quickly broke free and called the police. On the island, she also gets molested and nearly raped by one of the most detestable of men... and it's all pretty graphic and I can imagine it would be genuinely traumatizing. This is where most of the unpleasantness comes from early on, you don't see Himiko's friends get raped (thank god) but her friends suddenly decide that they hate her because... because she was the only one who didn't get raped? GOOD GRAVY WOMAN. SHE SAVED YOUR GODDAMN LIFE BY CALLING THE POLICE WHEN SHE DID. SHOW SOME GRATITUDE!
Also the man who molests her is fat and sweaty... ok I know that's unplesent but early on in the series that fat bloke actually looked like he was going to be fairly respectable, but apparently he has raped before and he has tons of anxieties... *sigh* it's just sad to see that you'll know someone is neutoric just because they're fat. That's incredibly mean spirited towards fat people. The scene it's self is just... eww... haven't seen such intense rape scenes in even the worst of hentais... not that I'd know what a hentai is like... thank lord Himiko decides to defend herself, but she should have done that BEFORE he took his trousers off, and BEFORE he violently exposed her underwear. I did not go into something which simply seemed to be another take another take on the game thing like SAO or whatnot... oh goddamit SAO and your Asuna rape! Anime needs a great big slap on the wrist.
However... yes, while that is all incredibly unplesent, it does have payoff in making Himiko an incredibly sympathetic, if a little whiny and generic, character.

There are also other islanders. Taira is, oddly enough, a middle aged man whose over weight but not fat... and actually incredibly sympathetic. I couldn't believe they were going to add someone with his overall un-protagionist like design both in terms of character and appearance and NOT kill him off kamina style in order to up the stakes. I wont spoil this guy... but needless to say, I cried. I really didn't believe him at first though, I just couldn't comprehend his existence. Well done Btoom for making one of the first truly great middle aged overweight men in anime!
Other characters seem interesting but aren't fully completed. There are two characters who are pretty good that turn up out of nowhere towards the end of the series, although they do link into the overall theme of the show and work pretty well. In fact, I sort of consider one of those guys to be the main villain, considering the main villain is sadly absent for most of the show, having almost nothing to do with anything. The main villain is obviously the guy who set up the game, for what appears to be a secret televised reality TV show exclusively for rich people, but no Monobear is he, delightfully insane and in your face despite being in exactly the same role as him.
At last, there's a psychotic kid who isn't completed, which is a tad disappointing since they could have done some nice things with him, and someone linked to Sakamoto but again isn't fully completed, although I did like he and Sakamoto's history together, it actually stunned me, and he does effect Sakamoto's overall psychology. Mostly static and uninteresting for the most part however.
Other characters are not worth mentioning. Overall, while this was mostly negative, I'll be covering why most of these characters actually started to grow on me, even in Sakamoto's case, in the story section. For now, I'll just say that they seem incredibly unlikeable at first, but everyone especially Sakamoto develop into nice characters, many of the things that make me hate them also being the things that the show realises are their main flaws. It's simply incredibly unpleasant to watch them at times, be it due to stupidity or despicable actions.

Animation and music

Btoom recently ended, a 2012 anime so it's simply gorgeous. The characters are distinctive, although their costumes not so much, they wear civilian clothes which helps to highlight the realism but it is a little dull. Most of the show also takes place in a jungle, looking nice but also quite samey. I guess there are a couple of areas visted again and again to the point where you recognise one place from the other, but it is mostly just green foliage and light brown sand, sparkly blue if near the sea or is the sky is visible. It is all bright and eye catching whilst still retaining realism though, which is a nice change from the fantasy landscape of other game shows (SAO) of this ilk. It also has plenty of detail like sweat droplets when necessary, some real world references like Xbox and real world food snacks, flies surrounding old corpses, and best of all each of the different bombs look distinct, explode beautifully, and leave a noticeable impact on the world around them, craters and such. The show isn't afraid to show blood, either, and nor is it shown in gratuitous splattering all across the scene, nah it's usually just blood slowly trickling from a wound or something.
The music is mostly forgettable, I like the opening theme, cant really remember themes during the show or the ending theme. The last episode, episode 12, does however kick the music up a notch in all areas though, pretty stunning.
The Japanese dialogue was fine, not that we have much of a choice because there are no dubs at time of writing.

Story

So actually there are some very nice twists to this show. You find out that these utterly hateable characters... are actually hateable people! See they were kidnapped and forced to participate in the game because of a chain letter sent around which was rumored to actually work- the letter asked the person reading it if there was anyone who they would like to disappear. And yeah... people wrote down our heroes names and here they are! Although Himiko didn't really deserve it. It is here that I call upon the mother as being a terrible human being- she actually was the person who wrote down Sakamoto's name because... well, Sakamoto is a dick who wont get a job. I guess it's fair enough except for the elephant in the room. SHE IS HIS MOTHER. It isn't dwelt upon though, and Sakamoto really did treat her like garbage. Again, I could understand his behavior if he were a teen but I don't tolerate his behavior at 22. Your supposed to have grown out of being stroppy by then.
That said it is a new spin on things, and it works pretty effectively when people start questioning if they even have a place back at home for them when they had been secretly and discretely cast of society out by their own friends and family. Otherwise there is the standard affair- killing people vs working together, Himiko and Sakamoto's previously discussed and all too predictable realtionship, and other such things. Other than that the story moves at a decent pace, it's only 12 episodes long but it gets plenty covered. They don't pregress much in some episodes but there are plenty of flashbacks from everyone, plus introspective moments from the cast which clue you in to why anyone would want them gone, and other important aspects of their past, neatly finding a balance between advancing the plot, and cluing us in on the backstory via flashback each episode. Each episode usually ends on an effective hook, likely explaining why I watched more of it and at the relatively quick rate which I did.
There are plenty of dumb moments though, a reoccurring one is how the heck Sakamoto survives so many explosions that happen inches from him, they pull the trope of 'you think he's blown up but then he walks through the smoke' incredibly often and it can be tiresome occasionally, but you mostly grow numb to it. Other crowning moments are when Sakamoto makes the most absurd logically leaps pretty quickly, usually pertaining to the identity and tactics of certain characters. I'd call him a genius, but even a genius needs to have a logical basis for their conclusions. And of course, it contrasts heavily with his stupidity in the first episode when he doesn't figure out that the bombs are timers. The Bombs, or perhaps I should say BIMS themselves aren't very varied but they do the job. Some are landmines, some are timers, some explode upon impact, some cause an implosion, some are slow moving hovery things which home in, some are remotely detonated and... one releases a huge cloud of burning gas which separates skin from bone. Bit OP for what is supposed to be a balanced meta game, a meta game of one of the worlds most popular games, allegedly. It can also get choppy at times, I do wish all the characters had been introduced to us immediately, because episode 9 one guy turns up literally out of nowhere and decides that he's going to become a major character... he had no prior mention besides being part of a backstory of another character, but is presence really feels out of place and hastily written in. It is quite funny when you consider why he's on the island. It isn't well explained, but lets just say that it suits his character perfectly.

It all does payoff however, the final few episodes are very good and watching the series is worth it just for episode 12 alone, which is such a great turnaround for something I initially despised that I think it should be applauded for that alone, it sets up the emotions really well and unlike some episodes, I think was really well planned practically since the beginning.. Unfortunately, yes, it's one of THOSE anime, which refuse to end properly but hey! There's a manga which continues the story... I hate that so much, if you take it upon yourself to animate something, plan ahead so that you know you have the budget to animate it please! From the looks of it there will be a season 2 sometime, luckily, and I think the story is nearly over at this point. If they don't, I still think that episode 12 rounded out the themes of everyone who matters with the exception of only two who probably deserve climatic showdowns and a proper close to their nearly over arcs. I seriously do think that a mere 3 extra episodes, being generous with time here, could have probably completed the series fully.

Closing comments

Overall, don't pass this up. Can be pretty painful to watch at first, but it honestly does lead up to something pretty cool in the end, and from the sounds of it it isn't quite done yet. Watch the whole thing and give it a shot, it wont be for everyone but it is pretty solid.

That said be sure to watch it here:

www.crunchyroll.co.uk/btooom/btooom-btooom-pv-611757

Watch whatever you can on crunchroll or other legal sites like funimations from now on, I implore you. Heck, pay the subscription. Please keep anime alive, try to avoid watching it on other sites for free unless you can not actually find it legally- anime deserves our support, as does dubbing companies like funimation. I try to watch on crunchyroll as often as possible, and I plan on subscribing to it once I have a constant flow of income. There are ads, but the quality is much better than any other sites you can go to. If you buy an account, you also don't get any ads. Just do it as an investment for future products from the medium we all love. ;D

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So lets make fun of 'review' the first episode of the swimming anime Free because it is PRIME material for this kind of reviewing style! And I don't mean the style that's above me! I've only watched the first two episodes at this point so it'll be mostly blind. I posted a link above so I recommend watching it as you read!

So the very first line in the very first episode before anything else is 'the water is alive.' Looks like we already know what we're getting into. Be afraid.
In all seriousness the first scene here is pretty well done. The water is some of the best looking water I've ever seen from anywhere and it's quite powerful, setting up the main character's thoughts. It would probably be better if it wasn't so utterly ridiculous. The dialogue is incredibly over the top, personifying the water. Feels like it should be in a really campy shounen anime about war or something, but nope. It's just... swimming.
Thankfully the main character, Haru, shares my sentiments as we suddenly cut forward a few years to him saying 'yeah, there was some funky stuff going through my head back then.' So at least the show is self aware. It seems the beginning was a flashback to his time in a swim club with his friends. Now he's wearing a swimsuit in a bathtub. It seems eccentric but he seems to be a rather apathetic protagonist, looking forward to when he'll grow into an 'ordinary' person, despite already being a swimming prodigy. Hey, that's actually rather novel. Usually the apathetic one is one of the friends.
The opening plays and its actually rather good. The music sounds pretty cool and the animation REALLY has a chance to shine (though of course all the characters are wearing swimsuits and I don't think that the any of the two female characters in this show appear). Definitely a good opening for a show like this. Even so, one of the characters standing upon a rooftop against the sunset as a camera pans around him through a metal fence is eerily reminiscent of a moment from the Madoka magica opening. I'm calling plagiarism conspiracy. Or coincidence, whatever.
So we see a guy named Makoto(christ can't seem to get away from that name...) who seems really, really upbeat. You know how in some shows a young girl will be running around town being a ray of sunshine towards all of the locals before everything gets completely effed up? Except this is a swimming anime so that dramatic payoff will never happen. Anyway that's this guy. Never seen that before in an anime either.
Seriously. It's always a girl in this role and this is a 17 year old highschool male.
Also I know I've praised the animation up till this point but this guy also seems like a giant. Seems like everything is out of proportion. He towers far above the old lady, and I mean about double her height, and the cat looks like it could fit into a toddler's palm. I mean really? It's terrifying. *Inset godzilla joke here*
He's going to visit Haru who is still in the bath and... I swear to Christ Makoto was originally written to be a female. You know, uhh... Mayuri from Steins;Gate. THAT archetype. He even does the smile. You know, THAT smile. He holds out the hand, he smiles, then the camera zooms into his face and he cocks to his head to the side closes his eyes and smiles even wider. The most adorable smile every female character who the show wants you to care about makes, the one that has never before been seen on that of a male face. It's like the fundamental laws of everything I thought I knew about anime is crumbling down around me!
So anyway lets get to the fanservice. This show is a fanservice fest, but only for those who like oggling the male body. Like huge breasts, the show's art style heavily sexualizes the heavily toned body of Haru and the other characters. Mostly Haru since he spends most of his time in a swimsuit. To be honest it looks kind of disgusting. The abs are so heavily fetishized that it comes off as grotesque rather than sexy. I guess I'm not the best judge of the male body however, after all, I'm not attracted to males. Even so I think I understand what women feeling whenever they look at all the fanservice everywhere else. Are all the so perfect its unreal bodies of female anime characters that the male audience eats up also grotesque to them? It's a very distinct possibility. I really don't like the look but I wont hold it against the show. If it's satisfying the female audience, then its done its job and that's what counts.
So what does Haru do?
Well...
In the next scene he's grilling a fish for breakfast. Wearing an apron. Over his swimsuit. Huh? You know this might be the funniest image known to mankind. I don't think I even have a joke for this. What's funnier is how indifferent he is about it. He seriously doesn't give a damn.
They head to school, it being the start of a new year so old friends can run into each other and there otherwise isn't much to write home about. The interesting part is where Haru claims via his internal monologue that he used to be mistaken as a girl. I'm seriously starting to wonder weather or not the script was originally written with female characters in mind. I'm otherwise not entirely sure if this is supposed to be meta humor about the nature of fanservice anime. I honestly can't tell if this show is trying to be taken seriously. It doesn't hold back from the silly moments but on the other hand it seems so... sincere, besides that one moment of self awareness earlier.
But then AHH a female! Never thought that I'd see that in a an anime. The home room teacher introduces herself and... well, that was an event. She does that smile though.

They meet another former member of the swim club, Nagisa. WHO DOES THAT GODDAMNED SMILE and... *fine* I'll let it go.
I also notice that one line has been repeated quite frequently since the beginning 'don't call me Haru-Chan' Haru doesn't like the chan and I guess its a cultural thing but... it's used for the third time in this episode and it's starting to grate on me.
Anyway apparently Haru gave up competitive swimming. His friends are in shock! He was so great. And Haru is simply like 'things aren't the way they used to be...' I mean wow you're not a war veteran. Nagisa really seems to want to be in some kind of water related club with Haru, though. It's either swimming or hotsprings, apparently. Can't you guys just talk?
Nagisa suggests paying a visit to their old swimclub which is getting torn down soon much to Haru's dismay... he's eventually persuaded by the logic that he'll actually be able to swim at the pool, something he has a borderline fetish for. Your logic confuses me Haru-Chan.
Before heading out they have a flashback to a kid named Rin who left to become an olympic swimmer. Apparently he and Haru had one last swim together in a relay tournament... which I don't believe we see. What disturbs me is his line 'I'll show you a sight you've never seen before!' And now I believe that the writers HAD to have known what they were doing.
They break into the swimclub at night and relive old memories whilst engaging in comedic banter which quite frankly makes fun of itself.

But then oh no! Rin turns up looking like Sho Minamoto. They even play rap music trying to sound badass as he appears just to hammer in that he's gone to the daaaaaark siiiiiiide of swimming. 'Why are you still hanging out with these guys' oooooo look at that total disregard for his old friends! what the h*** made him change... I hope they'll explain that since it seems a little weird. Guess most people really do change for seemingly no reason as years go on though.
Without any real reason other than to give the two a reason to strip they decide to have a race in the pool. They take off their clothes (to reveal that they had both been wearing swim wear the whole day underneath their cloths) with such dramatic flair that I swear they were charging up a special attack or drawing their swords (no innuendo intended) or something. The wa wa waaaa music practically plays itself however when they discover moments before diving in that the pool has no water in it. As Rin leaves in tsundere disappointment they hammer in his new persona even more by having him drop the trophy they had one as kids to the ground. Kind of a shame that it wasn't glass and it didn't smash, honestly. Just having it land on the floor unharmed is a little anti-climactic.
So soon they find Rin's sister, Gou. They draw attention to the fact that her name is boyish whilst the main guys names are rather girlish. Like Haru-Chan, she gets angry when people call her Gou. She wants to be called Kou. It may just be the fact that the only other Kou I know is literally right above this thread grinning in all his glory but isn't that an even more boyish name? Makes me wonder just what the script was like during production.
She tells Makoto and Nagisa that Rin now goes to a boarding school that has a good swimming team. Haru doesn't want to go but again, he's persuaded by the presence of an indoor pool. I think in both scenes here they give him that same identical eye twinkle, too. They pull out a gag you'll be seeing a lot here, while watching practice Haru begins to strip before they even get indoors to swim. He'll literally just take off his cloths wherever he wants even when it makes no sense. I didn't know gray from fairy tail had a brother.
So when night falls they break into the pool and start swimming. Nagisa goes skinny dipping while Makoto goes the opposite route and it's all quite sickeningly cute. Rin comes to stop the fun however and the episode ends with them about to challenge each other. Oh, and of course there's an ass shot and a hair flick, too, as he gets out of the pool to stare down his rival.
That's the end but then there's the ending theme which is one of the most confusing sequences ever. So Haru's walking through a desert then all of the characters are dancing to really upbeat music, and Rin is some kind of sultan who seems to be treating his water the same way a miserly king treats their wealth? Uh, see it to believe it. Really odd.

So that's the first episode of Free. Really funny, I just wish I could do the show justice. If you took a ton of cliche's, not just anime cliches, put them into a script designed to maximize fanservice to an even more ingenious degree then examplares such as seikon no qwasar or highschool DxD, switch around genders and you get Free. Honestly however while Free does seem to be setting up a fairly basic rivalry story across many years it is much more than I can say for most fanservice anime, generally. At least when it comes to the harem set up, anyway, because right now the show isn't telegraphing anything romantic, I'm glad they didn't decide to go for a reverse harem with Gou. At least, that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment as the show is much more interested in Haru and Rin. So in a way this show is kind of unique. It isn't a harem like most anime, it's fanservice is for the male body loving audience and of course females specifically, and it's about a sports rivalry. Even other non harem fanservice anime usually go for something heavily supernatural. This is as down to earth as a harem with similarly comedic dialogue, and no tripping. I think what's nice here is that the fanservice is the choice of the characters. Think about it, they're just swimming. When they strip they want to. I notice that lots of other fanservice anime use female embarrassment as simultaneous comedy and fanservice. There is no embarrassment here, and that's nice. I can recommend this anime so far if you don't take it seriously.
Even so... my lord is it hilarious. I can't wait to rip into it further.

[Deleted]

Why Team Flare are my favorite pokemon antagonists.

Pokemon X and Y spoilers ahead, although most of the people who are going to read this have probably already beaten the game.

So yes Team flare is my favorite pokemon evil team, and while I would like to say that X and Y has the best story also, the fact is that black/white had a sequel and was much better paced. I liked the other characters in pokemon white more such as the rivals and gym leaders and N is one of the best characters ever to grace the franchise. And by better paced, I basically just mean that N beating the champion and erecting a huge castle in preparation for the final battle was AWESOME! The antagionist should always be the final boss, or your rival like it was with Gary in the first game but whatever. Hey wouldn't it be cool if the champion was also the big bad in the next game?

Uhh, anyway, Team flare.
Lets do a quick rundown of all the team's motivation thus far.
Team Rocket: Criminals who want money. Uhhuh.
Team Magma/Aqua: Extremists who want to cover the world entirely with land/sea respectively. I've never played Ruby or Saphire but this sounds like the stupidest plan in fiction history.
Team Galactic: To remake the world entirely in Cyrus's image. Cyrus is an interesting character but what I don't understand is why people follow him when he's clearly ok with sacrificing your lives.

Team Flare however is a bit more interesting. Lysandre, their leader, is probably one of the most sane and level headed antagonists so far. He's even a friend of sycamore's (although his identity is painfully obvious, then again it always is) and his talk of wanting a beautiful world sounds fair at first, if a little out of left field to be mentioning in casual conversation. When he reveals himself (I love how the game doesn't make a big deal of it, like 'yeah, we all knew who this guy was') and you learn more about him, he still manages to remain calm and explain himself rationally.
Essentially he despises the idea of war and Darwinism in all forms, and sees the world as being too overpopulated and incapable of sustaining itself. He sees only a future where people fight over what remains until there is nothing left. This is very relevant in today's world and the world of pokemon, since the animal kingdom and Darwinism are heavily linked and considering how nice and liberal everyone in that world is with resources, you can kind of see it running out. He believes that pokemon especially will be terrible tools of war, as evidenced by the previous pokemon war. Speaking of, the moment I knew how fantastic a villain he was was when he shed a tear when he had to admit that he would cause all pokemon to go extinct. Lysandre isn't the least bit selfish, he hates the thought of loosing his companions as any of the protagonists. He has to be the first villain in the series who isn't motivated by self interest.
This all probably sounds weird since his solution to this problem is to erase everything except Team Flare. In other words, he wants to erase the concept of Darwinism not by fighting, beating, and subsequently oppressing the other side like most, but actually by erasing the other side. Weather or not this action is hypocritical appears to be meaningless to him as he believes that it is the only way to save the world. To significantly reduce the population, erase all possible weapons, administrate his new world forever by becoming immortal and make sure that there are enough resources for those who remain. Unlike the often compared Cyrus, Lysandre doesn't want to remake the world purely for himself.

The grunts probably clinch the deal here, surprisingly. They have the most believable motivations to me. Team Plasma seems more natural at first glance since animal rights activism isn't a new concept even in the real world (Plasma seems to completely parody, satire, and imitate PETA in so many and so many accurate ways possible its scary. Yes even Getsis contributes to that, PETA really are led by people that evil.) but what I don't understand is that the pokemon world already has villains like team rocket who really don't care about being dicks to everyone, so why did Ghetsis have to keep up the animal rights charade and why did team plasma continue to follow him after they found out that he was lying? And why would he spend so long brainwashing N to become a pokemon sympathizer if he didn't even believe in what he was brainwashing N with? Maybe I missed something or maybe it was revealed in B/W2, but I don't get that. At all.
However, for Team Flare, put it this way- if someone came up to me and told me that for a one time fee and general service to an organisation, telling me that by joining this organisation I would survive the coming apocalypse, and come out a god afterwards, you bet I'd pay the money for that. It's human nature, I'm selfish. And a lot of other people are, too. Team Flare aren't evil, and I'm not entirely sure that most of the grunts (besides the admittedly forgettable admins) even fully believe or understand what they're putting themselves up for. They just want to be happy, they're not all that evil and it makes sense that they would want to follow someone like Lysandre, who apparently is a respected big shot outside of team flare anyway. Granted, being willing to help someone who plans to eradicate almost all life is rather morally corrupt, but then I think this- team flare seem rather tame in other events compared to other games. Team Rocket and team Plasma, and the protagonist of pokemon Colosseum for instance, and I'm sure others, probably do the most mean thing besides world ending doom by stealing people's pokemon. That would be like me kidnapping someone's best friend or their pet cat... that breaths fire... which is kind of mean. Other teams steal other things like pokedexes in the case of team galactic.
Team Flare do steal other things. I found it cute how they stole pokeballs from the pokeball factory, performing an illegal activity in order to make performing a perfectly legal activity a little bit easier. Despite this, they didn't destroy the factory for the evilulz and they apparently didn't steal enough to halt pokeball sales for even a moment. They also take fossils from a cave, though the scientists didn't even notice them and considering how you can get old amber from the same cave without permission, it seems that the cave was free for exploration and looting anyway. They literally only seem to fight you to show off. The only nasty thing I can really think of past that is siphoning off electricity from Lumoise which causes lots of blackouts and early game frustration. Talking to a grunt, they apparently already had enough electricity from their own power station but took over the Lumoise one so that they didn't have to sacrifice any of their electricity. That's pointlessly dickish but it brings across their ideals quite well, at least for the grunts.
In my opinion the name also makes a lot of sense, as in, 'flare' (world destroying) and 'flair' (fashion) whereas team plasma and team rocket has absolutely no relation to anything that team is about. I also like their designs, suits are cool and sophisticated indicating fashion but the signature orange colours create a character design that looks simultaneously cool and hideously ridiculous, which matches them quite nicely. No idea what is up with the glasses, they're incredibly goofy. The questionable character design is offset by Lysandre however who looks objectively badass and independent of his grunts.
Also on a side note, I think team plasma and flare were opposite in terms of progression of interest. Before you even play the game you know from adverting that plasma is tackling animal rights, something that has loomed over pokemon's head for a long time now. However Ghetsis, while the most legitimately terrifying and insane villains in the series, really undermined the edginess of the team. I do respect the PETA satire but it would have been just as easy to have Ghetsis be a character who is actually ok with killing pokemon in order to keep them away from their owners, which would still contrast with N whilst keeping the animal rights thing going.
Also, killing pokemon to keep them from their owners is closer to what PETA actually does anyway, so the satire would be complete and it would make Ghetsis more complex but no less insane. But Alas.

Wow, I've been bashing PETA a lot haven't I?
They deserve it.

Team flare on the other hand almost made me face palm when a grunt first said 'our goal is to make team flare the only happy people!' Or something but team flare slowly became more and more interesting and intimidating as the game went on and we learnt more as opposed to other teams who get less interesting or don't change over the course of the story.

Well that's all I got. Good to see Nintendo are still trying with story. Sticker star made the future of Nintendo look very bleak indeed. But thank you pokemon, team flare really felt like the best and most important updgrade to me more so than any of the other additions to X and Y.
That's because I'm a story > gameplay guy.
Goodnight.