Game Review — RIFT

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Ubu Roi

As the description says, animé, games, and other silly things. Here goes a rare gaming post.

A while back, a fellow WOW player (Redneck Guy, actually) asked me if I’d seen or heard of a game called RIFT. He had seen some of the previews and advance publicity, and wanted to know my opinion. In short, I didn’t have one, since I’d pretty much sworn off MMOs. Sworn off as in, I still subscribe to two: City of Heroes, and DDO. I’ve dropped and returned to COH several times over the years, but I have never closed my subscription — so I have all the veteran bonuses up through 63 months. (probably 66 now). And DDO; well, I thought it was going to be my casual fantasy fix… until now.

Short version, I tried RIFT and I really, really like it so far. Long version? Head below the fold.

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What a Season — It Was (updated)

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Ubu Roi

So little time… so much change of opinion. As I said about ten days ago, there were no less than eight shows I was following from the new season, though I forgot to mention that I’m still following Index II from the prior season also. Unfortunately, some of them are not quite as captivating as I had previously thought.

Fractale: Still the winner, perhaps even moreso than before. It’s entirely unexpected twists don’t neatly fit any clichés.

Madoka: Another trope-defying show. Kyubey is the most manipulative, terrifying non-villain I have ever seen… only I’m not sure the “non-” is correct. I have only one clue where this is going, and I’m beginning to suspect it was a red herring.

Freezing: Nothing’s changed about this show; it’s still seinen with tits. But they’re such nice ones! It’s benefiting from low expectations. I didn’t expect much, and had little hope; so far I’m getting what I expected. Rina/Lana shows up this week. I think we’re going to be able to get all the way to the big event before we’re done (major spoiler): a four-nova incursion that’s going to kill a lot of secondary characters

Gosick: The penalties of disappointing expectations drop this to fourth. I’m watching for the characterization, because the mysteries are fatally flawed. Also, they didn’t actually have the best line from the preview in the last show: “Take your urge to mate elsewhere.”

Dragon Crisis: An unusual case in that it hasn’t earned this spot through quality and competence, but instead by not screwing up like the rest of the pack.

Infinite Stratos: Turning into dreck; the major problem is that Ichika is a dumbass. He can’t be that oblivious to the fact that every female except his sister goes into heat on sight of him. Best line belongs to Aroduc, who chastises him for “being oblivious to Houki ovulating in your arms.” Oh well, at least the new Germanic girl got things off on the right foot by slapping the crap out of him on first sight, even before he had the chance to accidentally grope or see her naked. We all know it’s going to happen, so why shouldn’t she get the first blow in? Very much on the bubble; not sure I want to continue.

Koreha wa Zombie: All the cute, offbeat, parody, and sublimated romance elements in the world may not be able to make up for the fact that underlying all the above is a bloody slasher/horror flick. Good people are dying here, and that clashes really badly. I might give it one more episode, but I’m going to have to be really bored for that to happen.

Yumekui Merry: I got ten minutes into the last episode and discovered something important — I don’t care. The show just hasn’t grabbed me. After the first episode, it lost it’s way and dragged too much. Too few revelations; too much Merry angst.

Index II: We’re getting mired in the parts where the story starts getting twisted, stupid, and dark again. And from what I’ve seen of the novels, it’s going to stay that way, which means the “Index being silly” segments are going to seem out of place. Also, as of the last story arc, Touma has NO excuse for not questioning what the hell is going on in the background — he’s about to be hospitalized when he gets a call from the frog-faced doctor, who remarks that it would be bad if another hospital examined him, so why doesn’t he just get wheeled down to the airport where a private jet is waiting to take him home to their hospital? Combine this with the sudden appearance of two passports to facilitate their trip to Venice in the prior episode and I have to say no one but the main character in an anime could be that stupid….

UPDATE: And Dragon Crisis continues to “not screw up” quite well, in fact. I liked how this episode went, and the twist to George’s and Maruga’s stories. As for Ryuuji, usually, having one of the girls so far out of the running or the main character being oblivious annoys me, but it’s actually working in this show. The reasons being, #1 He’s got a good reason to not realize anything thanks to her shyness and bad timing, and #2 even though its due to silly misunderstandings, she knows she’s out of the race thanks to Rose. So the male isn’t being an idiot, and the female isn’t dragging on in false hope. (In fact, if her friend would get a clue and knock it off, it would be better for all concerned.)

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Koreha wa Zombie, ep 4

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Ubu Roi

Just a short note… Maybe I should move to Twitter for when I don’t have a full article, just an observation. Oh well, mass spoilers below the fold.

Odd speculative point of the week: was the putridly poisonous purple goo (practicing my alliteration but I ran out of p’s) really just a cooking joke, Mihara being mean to Ayumu, or something else entirely? Like a magical elixir. She was really insistent that he drink it. Meanwhile, the Anti-harem is slowly becoming a real harem, and no, the cute girl in the hospital with the crush on Our Hero, is not going to be part of it.

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What a Season!

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Ubu Roi

I was responding to a post by Steven when I realized the following:

…I know you disagree on a couple, but I’m still enjoying five – um, six – no, seven — OMG, eight (!!!!) series this season: Fractale Gosick, Madoka, Zombie, Freezing, Dragon Crisis, IS, and Yumekui Merry, in that order. I would not have laid money on four of them getting past episode 1. [Meaning me watching them.]

Best season in ages… so far.

Indeed, I’m quite surprised by it; there are three really great series at this point, two good, and three more I find tolerable.

Fractale: First Noitamina series I haven’t outright detested, and so far, it’s hitting on all cylinders. I remarked “I don’t know whether to root for the show’s success so it will be worth watching (and redeem [Yutaka Yamamoto] IMHO) or dismal failure so we’ll finally be rid of him…” Well so far, he’s gone beyond redemption, for me. Which of course, means, based on my taste compared to the mainstream, that this show will be an utter flop. Love the OP and BGM though, and the sung rendition of Yeats’ Down by the Salley Gardens got my Scots-Irish soul humming. Can’t wait for any of it to hit Genbou. Anyone know a good program for ripping the audio, that doesn’t have a learning curve from hell?

Gosick: I dissed it just for the name and having nothing else to say about the idea of a miniature female Sherlock Holmes. After the first story, I think the logic holes having to do with the ship were enormous. And yet this series still is in second place, just from the sheer atmosphere, the convoluted first arc, the revenge story, and a pair of very engaging leads. Oh and an outstanding ED I just love. If it doesn’t squander the setting with angst and/or harem silliness, it’s a contender for top anime of the season.

Madoka: Last of the contenders (thus far) for best of season. I said in a comment somewhere, that I think the director asked himself the question, “What if magical girls fought real evil, not fluffy, comic, need-a-hug evil?” and everything that this show is stems from the answer to that question. I will give it only one black mark, but that cost it first place — they telegraphed Mami’s fate. Besides the story quality and unique animation, it rivals Fractale for best background music. What’s with all the awesome music this year?

Zombie: Offbeat comedy, with a very serious horror streak hidden underneath it. Although he’s collecting an anti-harem, I suspect the lead may not be as despised by all the women as it seems. Or maybe I’m just fantasizing as badly as he is about Yuu. Seriously though, a masou shujo zombie guy? With a live-in necromancer babe, a vamprie ninja right out of a “Busty Vamps” centerfold, and an ex-magical girl? While the 2nd episode was a disappointment, the third picked the pace and humor back up a bit.

Freezing: I’ve got a lengthy article about this one that I’m trying to pare down to size; I’m surprised how much I’m liking watching it. (4:3? I had to say it…) Then again, I think it’s the fanservice — although what’s really got me hooked is that I went back and read the manga again, and my major problem with it vanished. Mainlining it made it much easier to keep up with the introduction of the new girls and why the author occasionally side-tracked into their backstories. That author, Im Dal Young, bears watching. I have not seen a series of his yet that I haven’t liked (Freezing, Aflame Inferno, Orihime VS)*– the women are strong, the males aren’t weak, the characters are not cookie-cutters, and the storylines are deeply laid. This one might be the exception, as the opponents are somewhat inexplicable. However, the protagonists are two exceptional people who should never have met, yet are being drawn together by the obligations they keep incurring to each other — and the viciousness of their classmates.

Dragon Crisis We’re now into shows that I might consider strong in any other season, but they are merely “OK” in this one. Alternate Japan, with magic items and dragons. Sort of a non-gritty “urban fantasy” setting. Ryuuji is a supposedly normal high school boy, but he has an odd connection to the childlike red dragon named Rose. Ryuuji spent a bit of time being a wuss, but he snapped out of it during episode 3, in spades. Worth passing the time.

Infinite Stratos: Harem hijinks with a fair portion of mecha. While it’s mostly by-the-numbers and formulaic, I’m having fun watching the catfights between the various harem members as they collect. There is no question as to whether any of the girls, even the most tsundere, want the guy, and none of them are interested in sharing. They throw in a semi-original idea every once in a while, just to keep the barf level down.

Yumekui Merry: This ought to rank above IS, but it just doesn’t for some reason. Probably because of how slow episode 2 was, and because so little progress has been made in determining what Merry is, how she got to our world, and what is going on with the dream world.

The really crazy thing is that of those, the only ones I was looking forward too were Zombie and Freezing, and maybe a bit of Fractale, thanks to Yamamoto’s comments. The rest, I ranged from indifferent to skeptical to outright derisive.

*Complete List Im Dal Young series below. I’ve only read the first three so far. Be warned, his stories have almost ‘John Ringo’ death tolls, and it often includes pretty girls, innocents, and good people.
Aflame Inferno
Freezing
Onihime VS
Black God (Update: I didn’t realize, this is Kurokami, which became an anime a couple of seasons ago.)
Phantom King
Re:Birth – The Lunatic Taker
The Legend of Maian
Unbalance X Unbalance
Zero
Zero: Circle of Flow

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Freezing — Manga and Anime

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Ubu Roi

So, after watching Freezing ep. 3, I got the urge to back to the manga and pick up from where the anime currently was. After I spent a couple of hours re-reading it, I was fairly annoyed that it left off where it did– I really wanted more of it. Mainlined like that, a lot of the earlier problems I had with it went away. The major problem I’d had was that too many girls got added too fast, and I couldn’t keep track of them, reading a chapter or two every few months. Reading through it all at once, it was much easier to keep track of them and grasp the subtleties. Also, I had apparently missed the chapter with Sattela’s back story. Then I wrote this review, and…

Let it sit in draft purgatory, while I tried to fix issues with taking screenshots. I never solved them, and the article remained in draft, for months. There’s an indication that I scheduled it to appear anyway, but I don’t see it in the list for January. (Actually, it looks like the post scheduling feature has failed, perhaps more than once and I never noticed, as I tried to get this to appear yesterday.) I’ve now rescued it (again?) and updated it slightly. Read on, but there aren’t any more screenshots like in the first article. I’m working on a solution to that.

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Deal with the Devil?

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Ubu Roi

In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, episode 2, Mami, Madoka, et. al. go into an abandoned building and fight with a witch, saving a woman who tried to commit suicide due to the witch’s influence. Mami is showing the others what it means to be a magical girl, and how dangerous it can be, if they choose to make a contract with Kyubey and become magical girls themselves.

As they enter the building, prominently displayed is some graffiti: not gang markings or such as we would expect, but precisely written text, in German. In fact, it’s a quote from Faust. This is what we see as the prospective suicide enters the building:

Click for larger version, full size is available through a second link. Sorry I can't go full size in one; blame WP.

And this is as the girls enter:

Again, make with the clicky to read

When the theme of the episode is “Do you really want to make a dangerous deal to become a Magical Girl?”, seeing quotes from the the most famous deal with the Devil in all of Western Literature is not comforting. This is not your mommy’s magical girl series, whatever it may be… it’s looking to be dark and serious with a cutsey facade just long enough to suck you in. I am beginning to think that Shinbo started by asking the question, “What if magical girls really fought evil? Not someone who just needed a hug when they were growing up, not some cutesy caricature of evil, but real, honest-to-badness Evil-with-a-capital-E? How would that change the formula?”

Quite a lot, I suspect.

And on another note, the BGM is still spectacular, especially while in the otherworldly spaces the witches create.

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Ubu Roi’s Worst of 2010

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Ubu Roi

Well, it’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaack this year! (And, as it happens, delayed by over an ‘endless eight’ months! But that’s ok, I promise not to post it over and over and over!) After skipping 2009 because I wasn’t feeling the snark (and frankly, anime in 09 was so shitty, it was too much work to become interested enough to snark at it), I’ve returned with my crude attempts at humorously mocking the worst shows of 2010. Or at least the worst parts. Which, strangely enough, come mostly from the Fall season. Please bear in mind that this is not a serious critique of the season. It’s just an exercise in humor, or at least something resembling it. So without further ado…

Worst Should Have Been (Was) Hentai: Yosuga no Sora. Ok, let’s face it, they decided to do the Amagami thing and put in a route for each of the girls. Haruka gets to capture them all. Then they waste two minutes every episode having a second ED’ and then burn another five minutes per episode on a short feature with the horny, lonely maid. Instead of giving her an arc, they give her omakes. WTF? I’m giving this one the “worst” award, not just for that, not just for the epic trainwreck ending, and not even for the fact that at times, it was softcore hentai. No, it’s because I seriously expected it to have a nice boat ending as Sora grew increasingly jealous, offed her potential rivals in more and more bloody ways, while poor Haruka was left to cover it all up, until she killed him in a rage fueled by her suspicion that he was falling for her stuffed bunny. it would have been edgy as hell. I was looking forward to that, but no, we can’t turn our porn into a slasher show. So, every two or three episodes, it was reset, until we got to the twisty end. Shades of Higurashi.

Worst Should Have Been (But Wasn’t) Hentai: Kiss X Sis TV tried for this title, but frankly, without the edgy sexiness of the OVA’s, it was just too lame to land even a satirical award. The title has to go to Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai (My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute) The creepiness factor of this show is just too much. Why am I dinging it for being creepy, when I don’t say that about Yosuga no Sora, and both feature siscon elements? Because the latter is making the siscon elements creepy on purpose. Sora’s obviously twisted, in love with her brother, and can’t express herself. Kirino, on the other hand, has no freaking clue. She is dishonest, in total denial, and she bullies her brother into playing x-rated imouto dating sims. She can’t admit to herself l that she wants her brother; worse, it’s not love, it’s just an infatuation with the idea of being in love. But she knows it’s unacceptable, so she buries it deep down and acts tsundere towards Kyousuke while trying to entice him into making the first move through the games. Any other girl gets near him, she starts acting like a bitch. Thing is, he seems to suspect it, but doesn’t do anything about it. The result is a relationship that’s even more dysfunctional than Yosuga, but is played for laughs It panders with the accidental gropes and otaku in-jokes, and therefore comes across as unintentionally creepy when it’s trying to be funny.

Worst Looking Female Leads: Hotori in Soredemo Machi Wa Mawatteiru. Holy fugly-stick, Batman! And someone shoot Hotori’s seiyuu, please.

Worst Ending: High School of the Dead Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. ‘Nuff said.

Worst Aerodynamic Breasts: Saeko, from H.O.T.D. Oh. My. God. Those things were absolutely deformed as she turned backflips.

Worst Purchasing Decision: Buying Moon Phase. Look, it was released in 2004, so it doesn’t really belong in a list of fansubs, but I have to ‘fess up here. What the hell was I thinking? The conceit of a self-centered nekomimi loli vampire matched up with a twenty-something ronin / part-time photographer was trying a bit too hard to be cute. But the real problem is that I just didn’t find the story interesting. Or the characters either. Why does she wear cat ears? Because an old perv asked her to. Why does the photographer follow her around as if he were her slave when he’s not? Damifino. After the Kinkle arc was done, so was I — no interest. I gave it a few days, and then tried to force it, but I found myself pausing the playback to do such fascinating things as read Instapundit, look at snippits on Jiltanith, or check Chizumatic for updates. At the end of the 2nd DVD, Hazuki/Luna has a conniption fit and runs away. I’m thinking at the protagonist, “Damn straight! Now go back home and get busy with the busty blonde meganekko vampire that’s old enough to, you know, fuck.”

Worst PedoBear-Approved Anime: A tight race, between Dance in the Vampire Bund and Chu-Bra. Lolivampire dancing naked in the OP vs. junior high girls’ underwear club. In the end, I hand it to the underwear club; Dance had the OP, but Chu-bra had the squikier (squicky-er?) concept. I’ve said enough. I can’t say much more anyway, because I avoided Chu-bra like radioactive poison with high sodium content. And gluten. And Dance just lost me after a couple of episodes — though I liked the season opener.

Worst Manga-to-Anime Adaptation: Well, for my money (a few dollars to Crunchyroll), Omamori Himari. That was intensely disappointing. They took a moderately good male lead, who actually grew a reasonable set of nads in the manga, and turned him into a mush-headed power-of-friendship-spouting nitwit that there was absolutely no reason for five (human and demonic) women to fight over. The source material wasn’t Shakespeare by any means, as two of the harmettes were little better than cardboard cutouts: The Girl Next Door (Rinko) and Goth Loli in a summer dress (Tama, she gets the title in attitude). Rinko got a little better as she struggled with the worry that she wasn’t going to be able to keep up with all the demons and demon fighters. Ageha was hands down the best of the harmettes aside from Himari herself, but she got turned into a caricature of an ojou-sama, but with magical powers. I hand this failure to the director, who does not have a major track record of success.

Worst Title: Well, Legend of the Legendary Heroes tried, it really did. But having watched the first few episodes, I came to realize it was a case of too-literal translation — it should have been more freely translated as “Legend of the Mythical Heroes” or some such. So, the winner is B-Gata H Kei, loosly translated as “B-Cup Sex Fiend.” Ok, for this one, I need to reach back to 2009’s classic and tasteful anime, Maid Guy, for a proper critique:

Application Criteria: “Girls with breasts larger than D-cup. For every centimeter larger than 95cm, 50 yen will be added to your wage. Anything less than D-cup will not be recognized as breasts. B and A-cups with large stupid gaps for cleavage are absolutely out of the question. Are they even really breasts?”

Thankyouthatisall.

Worst Incoherent Plot: What else? Angel Beats. Who the hell asked for Lost to be remade as an anime?

Worst Programming Decision EVER: Endless Eight. Yes, I know it was a 2009 show. It was that bad.

Worst “Get on with it!” Performance: Index II. In a year that saw all the ridiculous time-wasting fluff taken out of DBZ, Index once again shows that it’s talented enough to take all those lengthy staring contests, and fill them with dialogue that’s just as tedious.

Worst Re-Imported Anime: Fortunately, Iron Man and Wolverine are in separate years, which mean that not only will they not have to compete, Marvel Comics has the opportunity to take the title two years running. Can they do it? (And what do I mean by “re-imported anime?”)

Worst Milking of a Mediocre Anime Series: Seikon no Q– OW! Dammit, that hurt! I sprained my punnybone! Alright then…. in that case, let’s give it to Shakugan no Shana-tan. Yeah, that’s all we need, a cutesy chibi version of an already hapless angst-fest.

Worst Customer Service: Crunchyroll. After they announced the end to download-to-own, I bought the last 3 Eve No Jikan episodes before the deadline. Then I couldn’t download them, and CR never responded to my complaints. Only the fact that they massively expanded their lineup after that kept me spending $10 a month with them.

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