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Sound! Euphonium 2 – 08 [Rhapsody in Flu]

Posted by SuperMario on 26 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Sound! Euphonium 2

This week, the show delivers one of my favorite Eupho moments: as Kumiko and Reina quietly listen to the Euphonium CD, enjoying that little moments when the music is playing with drama or conflict yet to come. This little moment and the firework sequence back in the first episode are Sound Eupho at their best. They always excel at portraying characters’ little gestures and expressive reactions and those scenes allow our characters to sit back and breathe and let the atmosphere washes over them. While I don’t necessary disagree with their choice to focus on heighten drama and more in-depth characters this season, because we do need to know them a little deeper after 2 seasons, I do miss those little moments that the first season achieved so effortlessly.

So the big elephant in the room has finally addressed, as Mamiko told her parents that she wanted to quit college because she wants to be a beautician. She blames her parents for putting up pressure that eventually she had to study what she didn’t want to, moreover she was forced to quit the music band and now she just needs a break to all that. The way her strict father deals with the problems meaning that he won’t take no for an answer in everything he wants her to do; which is kind of suck. He does make a point when he said that it’s her who decided to take college so don’t put a blame game back to him, but that again is too harsh on his eldest daughter. But that family drama eventually points to the very relationship between Mamiko and Kumiko. If you notice carefully, this is the very first time that the passive Kumiko actually raises her voice to someone, because she freaking cares about her sister. Of course Kumiko doesn’t really understand her sister’s struggle, but it comes the other way as well: Mamiko doesn’t understand why her sister got so irritated at her decision like that. As this episode shows us many intimate moments when Kumiko were young, her sister was her inspiration to get into music in the first place and all Kumiko want is to play music with her sister. It’s only slightly hinted this week, but I can see that after her sister quitted the music band, it killed the joy to play music out of Kumiko (remember that in the beginning of season 1, Kumiko doesn’t want anything to do with music again) until she got swept up by the inspiration of Taki-sensei.

It’s a joy for me to be able to see Aoi back again this season, even with just a passing sequence like this one. Truth be told but I always found Aoi’s situation back in the first season the most resonant to me. I had briefly discussed this before but if I were Taki-sensei, I would think really carefully before pushing the music band to competition-focus. For me, it always seems too convenient for him to just let the band decided for themselves, then he just proceed to push the goal and cut all other craps. I know he wouldn’t mind if the band choose to just have fun playing music, but my main issues remain this: he should assist them to know all the consequences, all the pros and cons of these options are, because eventually if he pushes the band squarely into one direction, someone will eventually be pulled further away from that wheel. And that someone was Aoi because she can’t afford to have more commitment to music, but what get me the most was her comment later on to Kumiko that she never really regretted leaving the band. It all comes down to the decision we made and I know she made a right choice in her situation. But what is wrong with joining the band just for the sake of enjoying it as a spare time? Her role in the story, plus Azusa’s (the girl who plays in marching band in other school) gives Sound Eupho much more depth, because it adds another dimension to those who chase different pathways from our music band.

Although not actually appearing this week, Asuka’s mother air still lingers around this episode. Asuka has been kept things to herself so that her issue won’t be a bother to the band; but I’m still waiting, patiently, for herself to crack. She’s performing that happy persona so damn well that others don’t know if they should be happy or worry. She invites Kumiko over her house, which is a very abnormal sign, but that night might be the night that we understand her conflict in full extend. The show has been implied many times this week and it further confirms what I picked up last week: It seems like Asuka’s father is an Eupho professional named Masakazu Shindo (the girls even confirmed that it sounds like Asuka’s) and judging by Asuka’s attitude (the band comes first, cut the drama bullshit. But then again she seems happy just to play the instrument and doesn’t care much about the band drama), it seems that Asuka got inspired by her father. The reason I bought it up is because if that’s the case there is an equivalence between Asuka’s story and Kumiko’s own family drama: as both Asuka and Kumiko starting to play music as an admiration to someone, and then keep hanging on to the music even though that inspirations are gone. The strictness between the two families who pressure Asuka and Kumiko’s sister to quit the band to focus on what they think is better for their own child is another point of reference. Anyways, I’m pretty sure next week we will follow Kumiko to Asuka’s house to witness a rematch between Asuka and her mother and I hope this time we can really see what that girl is truly thinking about.

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Disgaea PC Video Game Review – 63/100

Posted by AidanAK47 on 25 November 2016 with categories: Game Reviews

The Disgaea series has been one that has caught my interest from time to time when shifting between games. It’s artstyle is certainly its most distinctive feature at a glance but for someone like myself the real draw of the series was it’s similarities to one of the most shining yet overlooked gems of the Final Fantasy franchise. That being of course, Final Fantasy Tactics. Disgaea however promised more, more levels, more customization, more content, more of absolutely everything. But with more comes the thing which is likely to keep many from trying it, game length. My entire playtime with Disgaea clocked in at 42 hours and I was focusing on only the main story. Taking into account the series rather famous post game content and extra features you could spend double, if not triple the time I spent on it. Disgaea is certainly a game that gives you your money’s worth and if made today perhaps it would have as much ridiculous DLC and collector’s editions as Watchdogs 2 has. Oh yes the days when you could have extra content in a game and not have to fork over a fiver. Anyway for this review I will be covering the Steam PC release of Disgaea opposed of its Playstation 2, DS and PSP counterparts. Now the PC version had a rocky start as on release the port had dozens of problems. Graphical glitches, crashes, frame drops, Lack of resolution settings…honestly it was a bit of a mess. However in recent times the port has been fixed up and as least on my rig it ran with no real problems. Only real problem I encountered was the game crashing if you tried to start it when the monitor was connected via HDMI to a TV but in recent patches that issue has been resolved. To avoid this for Disgaea 2 being released in January of next year they are currently Beta testing it by giving out free copies for testing purposes.(Sadly the submission date to be a Beta tester has passed so I will have to buy it instead) Considering that I think Disgaea 2 should have a much more favorable reception. But well moving on to the review.

Getting into Disgaea I had a feeling I wouldn’t be playing the games for the story and from word on forums apparently this game has the best story of the franchise. If this is the best story the series has to offer I say it’s truly not impressive. It’s not bad but the focus is mostly on humor with some small attempts to tug heartstrings from time to time. It’s a passable JRPG story but not a very memorable one. Part of the reason is that Disgaea holds a kind of anime episodic format which even has the female sidekick narrating next episode previews which are pretty much complete lies endorsing her as the main Heroine. As such the story is divided up into episodes which generally have three to four battles in them a piece. The plot deals with the demon son of the Overlord of the underworld attempting to take his position on the throne while fighting off opposition for the throne. You would think this would be the end goal of the game but halfway through he pretty much achieves this end and instead humans are introduced in the form of three heroes invading hell. These characters are fine though the main gimmick of the guy being a Flash Gordan parody gets tiresome quickly. This wouldn’t be all that bad but the second half of the story almost exclusively focuses on these humans and a war between Netherworld and Earth. Then in the last episode angels take center stage as the final boss. In a sense we have three main story arcs with some small episodic side stories in between. The main theme seems to be about a trainee angel Flonne helping to teach the overlord’s son Laharl to love which yeah is trit and cliche. Best moment of the story really was this angel Trainee being sent down to assassinate Laharl but failing hard because she was too polite and kind. Hearing her say “Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m an Assassin.” to Laharl did make me chuckle.

Let us talk about the meat of the game, the gameplay and boy, I knew going into this that this would be a grind heavy game but they really were not kidding. Gameplay in Disgaea plays much like a Fire Emblem game, with a grid like level layout where you direct up to 14 characters to move and attack enemies. It’s fairly light strategy wise as most battles are decided depending on the levels and it really just becomes a matter of using the skill best suited to hitting the most enemies. Out of the 42 hours I spent on this I could be fairly certain on saying that 30 of those hours were spent grinding. In Disgaea you can level up everything, and I do mean everything. Par for the course you can level up characters but use spells and you level those up, use skills and you level those up, you can level up weapon mastery, you can level up weapons, you level up specialists, you can level your weapons and items using item world, you can level up you standing in the dark assembly, you can level up shops if you buy from them and quite frankly anything that can be leveled, will be leveled. I said in my fairy Fencer review that if you have too many systems in place for getting strong, it becomes harder to balance the game for a good challenge and boy does Disgaea suffer from the same problem. Let me be blunt and say in Disgaea you are either underpowered or overpowered with rare times of ever being in between. The biggest challenge you can get can be from how geo panels(Places which grant bonuses to the player/enemy standing on them) which can really give you some painful levels to get through. There is even a level where everywhere is filled with panels that make people invincible so the only way to win is the lead/throw enemies to the one panel that doesn’t have the invincibility effect. I made a particular mistake one time were I accidentally made the entire field of play invincible, hereby making my characters and the enemy impossible to beat. That was certainly a facepalm moment.

The grind is the name of the game but if there is a major failing of Disgaea it’s just how poor a job it does with teaching you it’s systems. The overall interface is fairly clumsy seeing as you can’t actually view how close a character is to a level up or even how much experience they have.(You can see total experience in a separate status window but that doesn’t mention how close to a level up.) Some of the most important options are hidden under it’s awkward menus and the game really only tells you the barest minimum to get through it. Now you are informed that you can finish DIsgaea with minimal knowledge and this is true, but doing so will leave you oblivious to the game’s finer points with its mechanics as well as missing out on features which could make your life a whole lot easier. I find it rather annoying that so much detail was given on the nature of Geo panels and how to cause a chain attack with them when you will most certainly never actually use it. Yet you are given barely any info on how the Dark Assembly works or the nature of Specialists. There is info present with an NPC throwing out answers to how they work but this is akin to learning English by reading a dictionary. Just try reading over these lines several times it just won’t hit home how it all works until you fiddle with it yourself. To figure out how a number of things work I had to jump to the Disgaea wiki just to get my bearings. Even then I only came to realise about Specialists when I reached near the end of the game. Basically you would find weapons have weird names attached to them like Firefighter, teacher, gladiator and for the majority of the game i had no idea what these things even were. Only late into the game did I find out that all these things were essentially code for passive stat bonuses and by using item world you can double these stat bonuses and even move them between weapons.

What makes these so important is that there is a specialist which can double or even triple the amount of exp a character gets from enemies. In a game about grinding, that aspect is critical. Another thing it fails to tell you about is the master and servant system which is briefly mentioned but chances are that you will have no idea how it works. This is likely the best aspect of Disgaea as it gives a ridiculous level of customization to your characters. Here’s how it works, using your characters you can create other characters which are those characters servants. masters and servants don’t really differ all that much except in one aspect. The master can use and learn all the skills of the servant if placed beside them. So as an example, let’s say you have a zombie character whom you want to give healing spells. Well you use the dark assembly to create a priest using that zombie character. You level up the priest gain most of the healing spells and then you place that priest beside your zombie in combat. Then the zombie can use all the healing spells the priest has learned and if the zombie uses a healing spell enough times to level up, that healing spell is permanently added to that zombies skills. Meaning that regardless of whether priest is around or not, that zombie can cast healing spells on anyone. So making use of this system you can have Priests with martial arts abilities, dragons who can cast spells, mages who can use swords. Almost anything is possible and it certainly is fun mixing and matching to give a character the skills you want. The downside is that to power up the character you want, you need to create and level up another character whom you don’t care about. Which is troublesome when you want a mage who can use all types of magic and find that fire, wind, ice and star magic is split up between four characters.

So what’s Item world you may ask? Well in Disgaea each item, be it weapon, armour or usage, can be leveled up to be more powerful. To do this you go to Item world which is similar to a gauntlet of battles. Think of being at the top of a tower with several floors filled with enemies and the only way to progress down a floor is to either kill the enemies on that floor or find the stairs. Thus we have a pretty big source of most of your grinding as well as the most tedious aspect of Disgaea as a whole. Grinding isn’t exactly a praiseworthy aspect of gaming, mainly because it is used as a means to pad out gametime. However depending on how it’s done it doesn’t have to be a unpleasant experience. Keep it speedy and relatively easy with generous pace of reward and grinding can even be a fun aspect of a game. But here is where item world flatters. Item world is slow, time consuming and can be a massive pain at times. Reasons as to why is in part due to the randomly generated terrain of the floors which doesn’t always make the level player friendly. Nothing is unbeatable but it can make some levels that force you to throw characters all about the place just to reach the stairs. There were times I groaned when the game spawned the exit in such an awkward place and put a specialist on a platform to far to throw to or attack. To make matters worse, you cannot leave item world until you at least get ten floors down(Or use a genji’s exit which can only be obtained by going ten floors down in a item.) and it takes at least thirty to forty minutes to get down that far.

If you have the patience of a god you can go down up to hundred floors if you wish to give the item a serious boost in power but I never saw it as worth it. This mode is one of the best ways of powering up your characters but the complete slog of it just made me avoid using it until absolutely necessary. But then let’s talk about something that really bugs me about this game and it’s how you level. Unlike regular RPGs experience isn’t given out evenly among the team when you complete a battle. Instead exp is given to whomever happens to land the last blow to an enemy. This is a big problem for three reasons. For one, leveling up healing units is a massive pain as they have to kill units to gain higher level healing spells. Another is that you end up relying on certain units a lot which makes them a much higher level than the rest of the team. Ultimately the stronger units get all the experience when the weaker units get jack which leads to grinding your weaker units up to an acceptable level as you progress through the game. Lastly you end up using your stronger units to weaken higher level enemies just so your weaker units can land the last blow and it is all too easy to accidently kill the enemy. Personally I would prefer if Disgaea took on a system like Suikoden where experience is divided evenly and allows weaker units to catch up quickly with stronger ones. It’s just one of the things that could make the grind of Disgaea a little less inconvenient.

Disgaea to me is a prototype for a much better game. Within it’s clunky systems and tedious aspects lies the groundwork for a fantastic strategy RPG. I know a lot of this review was essentially me complaining about various parts of it’s systems (I didn’t even get into things throwing enemies into other enemies to double their levels or the mostly useless bonus gauge.) but I did have fun with this game. It’s just that this fun comes with a big if attached to it. I am hesitant to recommend this game as you can have fun with it if you are willing to put up with it’s rough edges. It is my hope that with it’s sequel it could polish up it’s lesser aspects and cut down the tedium of grinding to present an immensely fun experience. From word of mouth it looks like that’s exactly what it’s going to do and certainly am most interested in seeing that. What’s better is that there isn’t any real connection storywise to this game it seems so people can jump into what could be a much more friendly gaming interface. I hope they bring more of the series to PC so I can see this system evolve and potentially produce an excellent title. As for this title alone I say if you are interested I would say to make sure you know what you are getting into and whether you have to patience to deal with it’s blemishes. If you can look past it’s faults you certainly will have something to keep you busy for quite a while.

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Magical Girl Raising Project – 08[Sudden Event In Session!]

Posted by AidanAK47 on 23 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Blessed be the peacemaker, for she ups the body count. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Winterprison ended up dying while protecting Nana. But it is surprising that she managed to take down one of the twin angels before getting taken out. All the more surprising considering that the angels didn’t get a flashback so hurray for unpredictability! Though considering that I don’t really care much about them for it to hold any emotional weight it was more just nice to have one of the annoying characters get taken out of the show. Swim Swim is someone I care about and it was fascinating how she went about this. Ultimately she was following Rulers advice in that the leader does the absolute minimum and leaves the majority of the work to a subordinate. It’s no doubt that Ruler was an incompetent leader with a superiority complex but it is fascinating in how Swim Swim holds her in such reverence and uses her image to become a better yet crueler leader than Ruler ever was. Really what is wrong with this girl, after all she wasn’t sad that one of the twin angels died, instead she was disappointed in herself because she thought that Ruler would have done it better.

It was a good plan but they didn’t quite count on Weiss not getting taken out immediately. There is the question of why the peaky angel didn’t transform to escape Weiss’s grasp, especially when Weiss was specifically telling her that if she transformed into Nana again she wouldn’t be able to hurt her even if she knew she was fake. But I think they can’t transform as long as someone is touching them. Evidence of this being how when the angels stabbed Weiss and she pulled out the knife and threw it into the air before she transformed back. Fear as well could be a factor. But if I was to question anyones actions here I would question Weiss’s. Taking into account her ability I think she could have killed all the team by using her wall ability to crush them against the ceiling.

Koyuki seems to see that Hardgore Alice isn’t her enemy though she doesn’t quite like her all the same. Calamity Mary on the other hand has gone full psycho. With both Weiss and the angel out that means we only have two more eliminations to end the battle royale. Judging by current circumstances I doubt Mary is going to come out of this alive. We have seen that Mary was an abusive housewife looking to bully the weak and Fav jumped to give her power straight away the demonic little monster that he is. I do quite like when he drops the cutesy act and his tone goes more malevolent. Mary’s background is pretty typical but it does make her reaction to Alice a little more interesting. Mary likes to bully those weaker than her and while she can overpower Alice, she cannot kill her. So this pretty much makes Alice unbullyable and something Mary cannot stand. This would give their next confrontation some real emotional weight that has been missing from all the fights up to now.

Watching this really makes me appreciate just how well Fate/Zero set up it’s own Battle Royale as it truly was a well structured plotline. With fight scenes in a story you generally have a few ways to go about it. One way is to go with spectacle and make a fight visually dynamic say like Drifters did with it’s action scenes this week. However Raising project just doesn’t have the kind of animation and artstyle to really deliver on a spectacle. Another method is to give a fight an emotional weight. In Fate/Zero the first episode was the worst but it did the groundwork of clearing up all the masters motivations and how they contrasted the other players. The very first fight of the series setup dynamics between the servant. Like Gilgamesh wanting to take down berserker, Berserker wanting to fight Saber, Saber needing to fight Lancer…each character had a counterpoint that made the fights compelling, be it through principles or personality. Raising project doesn’t have that. For the most part all the battles are random skirmishes between opponents who don’t actually know each other. Dues to our lack of information on their characters these fight just feel rather empty and ineffectual.

However we do have counterpoints forming within the cast. Nana has reason to fight Swim Swim, the peaky angel will likely want to attack Nana in revenge for her sister, Mary wants to get back at Alice, Koyuki will want to fight Cranberry after finding out she’s responsible for Souta’s death…these could make the battles more interesting but even then I think this shows big mistake was having such a massive cast of characters. The best battle royales make it a point to get you to care for the characters before killing them off. I am far too apathetic about the plight of these girls to get invested in the conflict. Of course this doesn’t mean we need more flashbacks as they are the lazy tool for character development. Instead having more meaningful character interaction and grown would be a better option. Ripple and Top Speeds relationship is a good example. Speaking of which, I really worry for top speed. We have got the full extent of her backstory which means that she is a prime target to be killed off.

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Drifters – 07[Chaos Diver]

Posted by AidanAK47 on 23 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Drifters

Considering this is the first clash the Drifters had with the ends things went rather smoothly. They managed to take one down and send the other one packing. This really is what Drifters is best act, balls to the wall action and insanity. Admittedly I wish the animation is better as it does rely on closeups to cut down on the animation needed. But I wholeheartedly admit that Ufotable may have spoiled me in regards to fight animation. This was indeed a spectacle of badassery and with the leader of the Octobrists bringing in the rest of the Drifter I think we could have some interesting interaction and culture clash as they bounce off each other. One thing I particularly loved was when Butch and Sundance brought out the Gatling Gun. The look on Oda’s face when he saw that gun was priceless. As a guy who heavily pushed firearms in Japan during his time, I most certainly think he will be interested in that beast of a weapon. Big problem is that upon gunning down Giles they did mention that they used up the last clip and i think it would be a major problem figuring out how to reproduce the bullets.

As for the battle itself, Toyohisa once more working with suicidal charges, Yoichi shoots arrows and Oda hangs back to lead the elves. If it’s one thing this episode pointed out it’s that the ends really do have a massive advantage in this battle. If they are all as hard to kill as Giles then they happen to have superpowers along with heavy invulnerability. Though the difference could be like Toyohisa said, the ends are now exactly professionals when it comes to combat. At least what I heard of Joan of Arc she wasn’t exactly famous for being a great fighter and Anastasia certainly has no real combat experience. That does seem to be the turning point in this battle, Easy is choosing tragic figures who have reason to hate the world while Murasaki is choosing Military commanders and strategists. The only thing that really give the ends the edge is there supernatural tendencies so Murasaki may be onto something here.

So Joan of Arc is defeated by our resident Samurai and upon confirming she is a woman, he refuses to kill her. Allow me to ask the loaded question. Does that make Toyohisa sexist? Well looking at the actions presented here the answer to that question would be yes and yet calling Toyohisa sexist just doesn’t sound right to me. After all he did thank the octobrist girl for helping to save his life and trusted her to help him in battle. I believe this does present a certainly nauce often overlooked by more overzealous types that attempt to label every person, word, action and home appliance as sexist in some nature. In my personal opinion I would deem that Toyohisa is not sexist but is instead following the traditions and beliefs of his clan which have been pounded into him from birth. Those traditions are indeed a product of a time less kind to woman but to Toyohisa these very things are his reality.

Imagine if you will that you walked into an alternate reality where fish swim in the sky instead of the sea. Wouldn’t that feel wrong? After all fish swim in the sea, it’s what makes sense, it’s what you have been taught from the beginning. Same goes for Toyohisa, in his world woman stay off the battlefield. That’s just his reality. If he came from a world which woman fought on the front lines it’s likely Toyohisa wouldn’t have any real problem with Joan being on the battlefield and would have beheaded her. So is Toyohisa in the wrong here, I say no. The only thing wrong here is that Toyohisa let a very dangerous individual live to fight another day when he could end her then and there. Otherwise Toyohisa was simply living up to his character as someone deeply entrenched in his beliefs. The only thing I find immensely weird here is that Toyohisa was confused over Joans gender and yet Yoichi he recognized as a man immediately? How very odd.

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Strange Frame – Love & Sax (2012) Movie Review – 76/100

Posted by SuperMario on 22 November 2016 with categories: Anime Reviews, World Animation

Hooray, I’m finally back to this section after a while. I originally plan to review a more in-focus groups of animated films, like Korean movies, anthology movies, female-directed films, etc but now I have a different plan. The days that I cover all these will come, I promise. Instead, this time I want to highlight the very spirit of World Animation- take you around the world to check out a diverse set of animation techniques in wide ranges of genres. As I mentioned before the very purpose of this column is to recommend you readers to check out those movies as an alternative to anime and mainstream animated movies, so don’t feel discouraged to read on the review if you haven’t seen these movies. There will be mild spoilers on the theme of the movies, but I don’t see it as an issue should you guys decide to check out these films later.

The title this week: Strange Frame- Love & Sax sold me based on its premise alone. This is an …hold your breath here… indie musical psychedelic lesbian-themed sci-fi film using cut-out animation and upon reading this I know I have to check it out already. As the box office now is dominated by family-oriented animated movies with themes like “you’re different, but be yourself (Shrek, Ratatouile, Wreck-it Ralph…) or “we family will support each other forever” (the Croods, the Incredibles), something as weird and adult-oriented as this is certainly welcomed. So how the film itself fare, let’s get down to it.

The story of how this film got made is already a curious one. The story was written 10 years prior to its release by Shelley Doty and GB Hajim (and was directed by the latter) with their mutual love for sci-fi, especially works from John Valey and believe it or not, Shinichiro Watanabe. GB Hajim then continued the project by using his local Hawaii community (high school students no less) instead of going to big studio and it took them 7 years to finish the project. The story (if I could call that) follow the love story between Parker and Naia (a slave) and they form a band together. But then stuffs happen and Parker found out that she had been kicked out of the band, while Naia is under controlled by a ruthless record producer. Parker’s now lovesick and she attempts to save her lover from danger.

The settings are one of the real highlight of the film, it’s inviting enough to let us sweep up to its worldbuilding, but also ambiguous enough to still hint on the seedy parts laying underground of this world. Set in the 28th century after humanity has abandoned the polluted Earth and settled on several of Jupiter’s moons, humans then have to adapt to the new environment and as a result the physical appearance has been genetically modified as mutants. This allows the film to go wild on character designs, and they really go all out to create a chaotic and gritty world (with influenced a lot by Blade Runner and Cowboy Bebop). In this world, race, gender and sexual orientation seem to be non-issues and for me that is one of the most distinct and refreshing take on the future I have seen for a long time. At least we have probably one of the very first lesbian leads (someone please correct me if I’m wrong here) and those mutants people are all colored-people, which I personally happy to see that this film has balls to go that far.

Another unique thing about this feature is the technique they engaged. They use cut-out animation (think of the style of South Park) so that the visual animation sets itself out from 3D animation, while at the same time the technique supports the limited animation as they don’t have to animate every single frame. The best example for you to check out this technique is when the band playing their music, their heads are shaking while their bodies don’t move… For the most part I say the technique was used appropriately and moreover it carries certain charms that you can’t find it elsewhere. The music in the film, which is a mixture of jazz and rock, is phenomenal. I really love all the music played by the band, and the score, while goes overboard sometimes, is still solid and engaging.

The story is sadly the film’s weakest part. It always feels like the story is a patch-up of many unrelated stories, and really fall apart when you step back and think about it. As much as I like the chemistry between Parker and Naia, they both brought down by lousy dialogues, meaningless voice overs and the pacing is all over the place. Now that when I recall the actual plot, I can’t fill it pass three sentences because there’s not much into it. The love quest has been done thousand times before and unfortunately this story adds nothing new to the table, at the same time goes through as much genre cliché as possible. The story eventually comes together a bit at the end, but by then who really care for any development whatsoever?

But to be fair, nobody come to watch Strange Fame expecting for a good plot. What they are looking for is the trippiness and LCD-filled plot and boy did it deliver. There are many scenes where the movie just goes full wacko, and they keep going wilder and more bizarre as the story progresses. It also helps that the film’s visuals support that acid trip very well. The sequence where the leads are in drug, for example, contains full of weird and arresting visuals (really a love it or hate it moments I would add) and that high feeling is the feeling you can’t get out of after watching this.

Strange Fame proves to be an experience. Although the plot is as cliché and disjointed as possible, the dark, acid aesthetic, plus its innovative cut-out animation and its unbashed look on race and gender issues make it a movie that you all need to experience at least once. Just like a dream, in about a year time you will most likely forget about the plot of the film, but also like a dream you will never forget about the experience you encounter in your dream. Call this film a nightmare if you like.

Next one (probably next week), let head to South Korea where our comrade K-Off is heading for a world that slowly being eaten away by zombies. Stay tune.

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3-gatsu no Lion – 07 [Important Things. Important Matters – Teach Me How to Play Shogi]

Posted by SuperMario on 21 November 2016 with categories: 3-gatsu no Lion, Currently Watching:

Oh, the vitality of youth and first crush! It’s fun to see Hina’s under that crush spell and making a big fuss over Takahashi coming for dinner. As for Takahashi, he climbs up from being “an object of desire” from last few episode to a very straightforward and a bit serious boy now (anyone seen him smile once?) but his cold appearance is a nice contrast to Hina’s nervous sicken state. Well, enjoy it while it lasts girl because you ain’t gonna feel it again when you’re getting older.

It seems the show now covers the source material a bit faster now (2 and a half chapters per episode), but if that’s the case then I’m not totally on board with it. The main reason being each chapter is a self-contained story, even with chapter that begins as mundanely such as this one, being “Takahashi comes over for dinner and the family enjoy the night together”, it still manages to pull off a satisfying punch; that’s why breaking the chapter apart feels a bit disruptive to the flow of the story and could potentially lose its emotional earnest. This episode gets away with this issue this time, because of the continuity of Takahashi appearing in two chapters, but I’m not so sure if they can manage that next time. I would prefer they either stick with 2 chapters or they can speed up with 3 chapters per episode, but since I’m enjoying the deliberate pacing as it is now so I hope they won’t change that much.

As I mentioned above I very much enjoyed the chapter-style of the show so far, as each chapter manages to give a different angle to Rei and the people surrounding him. In contrast with the dark and sad story from last week, this episode shines with light touch and upbeat tone that actually signals the grow of Rei, even just a slightly bit. Firstly, through his honest-but-shabby explain to Takahashi, he’s actually able to reach him. Human interaction and connection is one of the most important fragment in our life, and sadly Rei is always out of touch with it. With just a little affection from Takahashi, it means a world to Rei, but it’s true that everyone would feel this happy when others understand exactly what you mean, especially someone who often self-doubt like Rei. Secondly, he’s now willing to take risks as well. With his old-self, for a shogi move that he feels too dangerous, he’d retreat instead; but now he’s heading over it to see if he can handle it. Although it costs him the match, I’d say it’s important for him to take that risk so that he could learn from his mistake. Finally but most importantly, he’s exploding over Harunobu’s comments, and that step is extremely important because it shows that he cares. As contrary to his fear last week, he actually cares for shogi and he cares for himself so he cannot stand to be talked down like that. At least he still feels something. You’ve grown Rei!

The supporting cast also works like a charm this week. For once, I feel Botoro’s (oh, I mean Harunobu’s) passionate advice from a shogi commentary no less as sincerely and heart-felt instead of annoying and I feel this is one of the strongest moments in this episode. He’s always the opposite to Rei in term of personality, as Rei always keeps his feeling inside himself, he is the one who says out loud what he feels and those advises are what Rei needed to hear (again and again in recorded tape or VCR that is). He really cares for his friend and even him appearing in later part to teach Hina and Momo shogi come off as necessary contrast to Rei’s stiff and machine-like teaching. Takahashi also shows his passionate side for baseball, and he fits like a glove to the rest of cast and his looking-up to Rei as a (sort-of) role model making them a weird (but nice) pair. Lastly, I know it isn’t much but look how shy and stiff Hina was at the beginning of the dinner, and then to her smile as she giving a piece of fruit to Rei and acting so herself in front of Rei, I feel a warm feeling inside me.

This episode might be a bit too light for 3-gatsu no Lion, but it’s by no mean a filler or even a mediocre episode. There’s still so much details to enjoy here and this episode is just so fun to watch. It’s great to see Rei has matured from time to time and seriously, who would say no to a shogi cat-warrior dance? Damn entertaining!

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Flip Flappers – 07 [Pure Component]

Posted by SuperMario on 19 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Flip Flappers

And here I thought I know what to expect from this show, yet I would never anticipate a Flip Flappers episode that is a direct continuity to the event of last week. In addition, this episode serves as a nice contrast to last week thematically as well. It only makes sense that after the episode concentrating about two girls performing same role, the next one will be about one girl who carries several roles, right?

Upon noticing that Iro-senpai has been changed in terms of her behaviors since their last Pure Illusion trip, and then later was confirmed by Hidaka that digging deeper into Pure Illusion level can alter the current world, Cocona doesn’t take it too well. It’s understandable in her case, since she’s fine as long as those crazy worlds are all fun and games. But when actions in these universes could potentially bring out consequences, it’s another matter altogether. The Pure Illusion world that Cocona got in this time carries out many characters that directly associated with her characteristics: that world is surprisingly grounded, mundane and completely isolated. That is when Papika multiple roleplaying really makes sense narratively to this episode. She represents the changes. Many roles she performs here aiming to assist Cocona to try something new and at the same time to have fun, demonstrated by many scenes like when the classmate boy who suggests her to skip class, or that emo girl who keeps pressing Cocona to open the drawer (for the meaning of that nail-clipper though, I have no idea but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn), or trying new clothes. Ultimately, Cocona learns that many things might have been changed by Papika’s and her actions, but changing isn’t always mean bad. In Iro-senpai case, I’d definitely say that she’s happy with herself right now. Isn’t it satisfied enough as long as they bring the happiness to others?

Papika performing various characters also serve as a direct reflection to her own role in Cocona’s life. Take notice that all the roles she plays can be seen as Cocona’s personal and social relationship. She starts as Cocona’s little sister (so cute!), the insecure child who takes care for Cocona and always seeks her attention; then as a classmate boy who genuinely cares for her; then as various social friends who spend time with her, and finally as her sensual lover. All those roles serve as substitutes towards Cocona relationships in order to raise a central message: Where would the real Papika fit in? Is she her family, friend, or lover? Cocona’s for this whole episode trying to sort out her feelings about Papika through having fun times with those variables, and Cocona soon realizes Papika’s none of the above. She holds a special place in Cocona’s heart that raises above all other alternatives.

Moreover, the use of multiple roles also makes a whole lot sense in the context of identity and growing up. Never in any other shows that I’ve seen the constantly jabbed at the role of identity like this one. The first read is of course multiple personalities, and I don’t mean it in a disorder viewpoint. Not unlike the class S, yuri genre where they hold a belief that mutual crush between two girls is a necessary phase for girls to mature into normal, healthy woman; multiple personalities can be interpreted as an adolescent phase, where kids put up many masks of personalities to fully understand who they are, who they are not. The play on gender roles could be seen as a second read, as Papika freely transforms from one gender to another, indicating the break from societal norms towards what are expected for them to perform. Lastly and not really related to the multiple roles, but learning to take responsibility is also another theme that this episode going for, as Cocona learns exactly that from the consequences of her last Pure Illusion trip.

So again, what do we learn this week? Things seem to go badly for Yayaka, as we now know that her place amongst the organization is pretty shaky. And the twins are referred to as the amorphous children, which could mean that they are artificially created by the power of the amorphous. Now it’s an interesting concept if you ask me. It is also confirmed that the deeper level of Pure Illusion world could alter the present world, which could mean the stake is higher next time knowing they have real consequences, but frankly I’d have preferred much better if they don’t try to explain it at all. After all, this is one of those things (the willingness to keep us in the dark that is) that make Flip Flappers so charming and adventurous in a first place. Finally, Papika just mutters “Mimi” out of nowhere to the new sets of character we never heard from before (Mimi’s holding a child if you notice closely, and looks like the guy who is busy with his PC game is the person in Papika’s flashback- or is it Dr. Salt? Hard to tell) and in any ordinary anime that would be a recipe for nightmare kitchen, but it’s Flip Flappers for Christ sake so I know the show will find a way us care about those new characters.

As much as I see many layers toward this episode, as I mentioned before Cocona and Paprika alone can’t carry the episode on their own and this episode was just thisclose from being dragged out, and the lack of interesting visuals certainly won’t help. That doesn’t mean this episode is bad either, and my expectation for the show is still as high as ever, but this episode also isn’t among their best effort.

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Sound! Euphonium 2 – 07 [Station Concert]

Posted by SuperMario on 19 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Sound! Euphonium 2

After spending the first half of this season for second year drama and the regional Kansai competition, it’s only natural for Sound Eupho to turn their focus on the third-year students now. After all, National competition will be their last performance, so there’s a lot of meat to invest on. Now we know more about Asuka’s issues, her mother is an uptight parent who wants her to concentrate more on the entrance exam and forces her to quit the band. Apparently, her mother thinks the band is just a distraction towards whatever goals she wants Asuka to achieve because she “knows” what is best for Asuka. Well, I don’t need to point out the problem with this attitude, instead I’ll tell you a story that I know in RL. A friend of my friend (so I don’t personally know her) had her parents divorced when she was young and her mother forbid her to meet the father out of her own hatred. In high school, she decided to secretly meet her father by telling her mom she’d walk home that day and planned to meet him in front of school’s entrance. Unfortunately, her mother spied on them so as soon as the two met, she detested by jumping into the running car and of course that event scarred the girl for life (true story!). My point is this, when parents dictate their child into such extreme without considering the child’s own feeling (the same case here with Asuka), things bound to get more disturbing. There’s still something that only hinted very slightly in this episode about Asuka and her mom’s relationship. Her mom tells her that Asuka playing instrument is to get back at her, it might mean that Asuka’s father also played instruments before. We don’t know either what Asuka wanted to talk to Natsuki about, but really the way she acts like nothing wrong happened even though everyone knows how dire her situation has been actually signaled that she’s in deep trouble right now, and I know things will get worse later on.

Haruka and Kaori likewise have a good amount of development this week. Despite being a band president, it’s obvious that Asuka has more of an influence band members than Haruka and even she knows that she isn’t leader material. But that’s not to say that she isn’t a good leader and this episode really articulates well her characters and her personal struggles. First, the absence of Asuka leaves a bad mood to the band, so for once she stands up in front of the band and asks them to trust the senpais and keep moving on. It wasn’t a very good speech (but she’s never a good speaker to begin with), but it was the right timing to encourage the band to focus on their playing. Moreover, she was asked by Taki-sensei to performing solo, which of course made her nervous. She’s always good at staying behind the scene and supporting the band, so to become a center of attention isn’t really her thing. But she has grown too. She has grown to start embracing the leader role, be more comfortable with her own self-esteem, and that solo part really shows how far she has developed as a character throughout the series.

Now, to the time shift “one month has passed since Asuka stopped coming to the band”, it’s nice for Sound Eupho to focus on a specific narrative issue, but for me the show has always shined on making the band club as real and relatable as possible, and that included the messiness in narrative. In real life, issues and events come as random as the weather, some issues we already anticipated beforehand, some we don’t. That is why I really enjoyed the randomness and messiness of last weeks’ many dramas, because it feels like the very world we live in. Now, we just passed a month without any real moments, in expense of showing Asuka’s issues, and that take away the “real life” the show has built up to. I mean what’s about Kumiko’s relationship with her sister at that time? What about any other band member’s interactions? This is not their fault obviously as shows need to have focus drama and I frankly would do the same if I were in their position, but the point being I hope that they don’t push up the drama in the sacrifice of the naturalness of the show.

Everyone who watching this show know that the production values are overall top notch, even comparable to the quality of feature length movies; but here I want to press how attentive to details this show is. I’m not the man who judge the quality of the music played by the band, but by reading analysis from someone who used to play in an actual concert band (I’ll give you the links if you guys ask for it), most of the musical was played correctly, even down to the fingering, the notes they play, the position of the hands and bodies were all executed perfectly, and for me that’s just insane. KyoAni not simply done their research, but it feels like they animating the real concert band performing. The more I read about how correctly each segment played, the more I am blown away. Imagine they made it right for the whole 10-minutes performance by all the instruments played, now imagine they even got it right when the band practiced throughout this one and a half series-length. As it become a norm that the production quality would drop significantly towards the middle part in anime world, KyoAni’s consistency towards the quality, plus their willingness to get ever minor details right that frankly put other productions into shame. They set a high standard on how production quality should be and I don’t think there is many productions out there that could come close to it.

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Magical Girl Raising Project – 07[Up Your Friendship!]

Posted by AidanAK47 on 15 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

Hardgore Alice really lucked out in regards to Magical girl abilities as he pretty much has the perfect ability for making her the most dangerous thing in this battle royale. I do wonder what happens to her phone though when she gets ripped to shreds. Calamity Mary’s whole gauntlet of trying to kill Alice. She quite literally tried everything in regards to killing her from encasing her in concrete to trying to dissolve her in acid. Either way it looks like Calamity Mary’s ability is being able to pull out any weapon she needs. I at least appreciate that Mary liked Magicaroid enough to actually seek revenge for her death and Fav is certainly showing that he’s willing to bend the rules as long as he gets something in return. Mary didn’t specify just what job she would do for Fav for the information on Hardgore Alice but it could be related to her calling out Ripple at episodes end.

We also get a look into a character’s backstory. I originally thought it was Calamity Mary seeing as the entire first half was dedicated to her but it seems that it was instead Ripple, the Ninja magical girl who hangs out with Top Speed. I do like Ripples style as her backstory was gearing up to be a typical abused child story but she’s got moxie. The characters around her are playing the usual fair of being bullies why too obnoxious to be considered believable but the minute they go too far she shows them she ain’t going just let them walk over her. Especially love how she dealt with her mother’s new husband. I was really dreading the direction that was going but the minute the man showed his intent Ripple was like “Oh, hell no!”, kicked his teeth in and announced that she was going to live on her own. I have serious respect for this girl but it’s clear she doesn’t hold her mother in high regard. In some ways she may be seeing Top Speed as a kind of surrogate mother as she does tend to act like one. I doubt Top Speed gave Ripple her real age as she did mention drinking alcohol and Ripple pointing out that she would be underage for it as well.

Of course if you were following the trend of deaths so far then it’s a safe bet to assume that Ripple is the next one to die. After all, anyone who gets a flashback is generally the one to end up dying in this show. I would like for the show to break this pattern and instead have someone else get taken down because unpredictably would be a great asset to this show and that’s sadly getting ruined by how telegraphed the deaths are. It’s also sad that most of the people who die are those with the most development so far. I think characters are starting to get fleshed out a tiny bit in the case of Swim Swim, Alice and Mary. Through not really enough to make me care whether they live or die. Though I must admit that I find Alice’s current relation to Snow white interesting. Snow’s clearly terrified of her but Alice seems to genuinely want to help her. After all she did spend six years of her live to buy that rabbit’s foot only to give it to Snow White. Her nature does make her seem suspicious and pretty dangerous, especially the stiff undead movements. However I am guessing Alice is a Snow White fanboy(Confirmed to be a girl by last week’s mid card which pointed out that she lives with her aunt and loves stuffed bunnies.), and considering her abilities she would certainly make for one fantastic ally for this Battle Royale.

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Drifters – 06[Men of Destiny]

Posted by AidanAK47 on 15 November 2016 with categories: Currently Watching:, Drifters

Well those soldiers deserved to die much more unpleasantly but at least the deed is done. Though I do find it interesting in how Oda interfered with their execution to prevent Toyohisa from giving the order to kill them. The funny thing is that this effort didn’t seem to be made in order to save Toyohisa the guilt of killing unarmed men or to save the men but instead Oda wanted to take on the dirty job of killing them so the act wouldn’t sully Toyohisa’s position when Oda pushes him to become the leader. Much to Oda’s dismay, Toyohisa hands the reigns of leader over to the elfen chieftain on the grounds that if he did lead the elves, then eventually the time would come when their arrows would be aimed at him. Though regardless they look to be playing a pivotal role in the army. In other surprising revelations, it turns out that the master race bigots of Orta was set up by Hitler. HItler can’t seem to be satisfied with screwing one world up, he has to go and wreck another. We won’t be seeing a climatic battle between evil Jesus and anti-hero Hitler(…I actually kinda want to see that.) as according to the Octobrist agent, Hitler has once again killed himself. It’s up for debate whether he did genuinely kill himself or if he was more likely assassinated. Still I did see someone theorize that perhaps when seeing that he was repeating history he decided to off himself which I find a more poetic end. It is rather funny that none of the Drifters recognise Hitler because he was after their time.

Speaking of Drifters I think the roster has a bit too much Japanese representation. We got a grand total of five Japanese representatives on the drifters side with the main trio, the fighter pilot and the navy admiral. The ends even have two Japanese figures and from the looks of it the Octoberist leader looks to be another Japanese figure. There are other historical figures that I really think are unrepresented in media. For one I think Admiral Yi would have made for a better sea commander and I would have loved to see famed Finnish Sniper Simo Hayha, Aka The White Death who would make a perfect counterpoint for Anatasia of the ends. And if you were going to pick any World War II fighter pilot then why not Erich Hartmann? I feel he would be a much more interesting choice than Kanno Naoshi. But who know, maybe later in the story they might show up. Not sure what to think about the transvestite count that’s shown up in Orta, for one I find it odd that Hitler would choose to work with such a guy and he seems to be mainly a comic relief character in a story where the comedy is certainly falling flat. Overall I don’t see him as much of a worthwhile addition at this point as at most he has pointed out that Orta seems to be doomed that’s to overextending its armies which I believe was also a mistake that Hitler made in WWII as well. The black king drops more hints to him being Jesus by referencing Jesus cursing a fig tree for being barren(Got to admit, not his most graceful miracle.) and it looks like Joan the pyromaniac is coming to take on the Drifters. Considering their army is just getting set up this likely won’t end well.

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