Summer Anime '08 - At a Glance

Now that the summer anime season is wrapping up, I can look back on the shows I decided to stick with and give a better (or worse) perspective on them.

Let's start with Natsu no Sora, the anime from the creator of Someday's Dreamers about young magicians studying magic. First of all, it's loads better than Someday's Dreamers (which you may recall I quite hated). I rather enjoyed it. It was very sweet and adorable. The pace is rather slow, but it's actually kind of calming, and it's something different from the other shows out there. It does have a serious side, as characters cope with either having a difficult time casting their magic (like Gouta), or with the motivations of their clients (like Kuroda).

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu ended up being very cute, but had little substance. The "we're together but not really together" relationship between the two main characters was rather annoying, as was the addition of a rather pointless love triangle. But it was very, very cute, and funny. Haruka's journey to become comfortable with her secret anime addiction has its ups and downs, as she deals with her father's reaction to her hobby and struggles with allowing Yuuto to continue covering for her and occasionally taking the fall for her.

I did not continue with Koihime Musou as I had too many other shows I felt were far better that I wanted to continue watching. Plus I had trouble getting over the fact that they were just female adaptations of male characters.

I ended up really enjoying Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (or Ryoko's Case File). I'd say it was my favorite of the summer shows. It's very well done, the characters stay interesting, the story keeps you on edge. Once it's completed, I recommend checking it out. Hopefully this one will get picked up in the states.

Didn't bother with Strike Witches, either. Again, I felt there were better uses of that time, watching better shows. And whatever story there might have been was shadowed by all the ecchi and fan service.

Antique Bakery ended up being a LOT better than I thought it would be. It was very amusing. And when it wasn't being totally ridiculous, though very funny, (which it was about 60% of the time), it was fairly serious. In between the ridiculous antics of a group of pretty boys running a high class bakery (complete with an openly gay character making eyes at everyone), there were some serious story lines. Child kidnappings (a story line which ties together with the main character being kidnapped when he was a child), abusive relationships, sexual bigotry, and professional boxers dealing with threatening injuries. It's still a pretty boy/boys love anime, so if that's not to your taste then you probably shouldn't watch it. Though I will say the boys love themes are rather subdued for the most part, with the exception of a few episodes where it plays a large role.

I still intend on writing up reviews of Chocolate Underground, Natsume Yuujinchou, and Telepathy Shojou Ran from the summer season once they're finished, and some shows from the spring which are now wrapping up. So stay tuned!

KH Re: CoM for NA

YES. Finally! w00t!

Via Kotaku (and probably lots of other places as well; it's big news!)

The remake of Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the PS2 will be coming to the states. Unfortunately this is NOT Final Mix, it's just the CoM part. But hey, that's something! The GBA game sucked so much ass; I'm hoping it will be better in full 3D (now complete with lots of voice acting from Haley Joel Osment).

To top it off, the game will launch at a friendly $29.99!

Maybe now I can actually make it through the whole damn game. I always got stuck in Never Land on the GBA.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Chain of Memories was originally released for the GBA 2004. The game takes place between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2. If you've played KH2, but not CoM, note that the intro to KH2 (with all the characters running around on the staircase, and what would be an unfamiliar looking blonde girl in a white dress) is a quick glance of what happens to Sora in CoM. So if that at all confused you, well, now you can play a hopefully more user friendly version of the game to fill in the story gaps. As another note, if you were not previously aware, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix was a "final mix" of Kingdom Hearts (they do this with some of their Final Fantasy games, too) AND a remade version of Chain of Memories (on the same game) that released in Japan oh...early last year? Maybe late the year before? I'm too lazy to check and it doesn't much matter. Final Mix would have been preferable, obviously, but better this than nothing.

Nintendo Wiimote Patent Dispute

These come and go like the waves of the ocean, but this one has some actual merit. Most of these types of lawsuits are ridiculous and hardly make an impact, but this one just might affect gamers all across America. If the suit is carried out, Nintendo would no longer be able to sell the Wiimote in America.

Here's some links for you to read up on the situation:

Game Politics: "U.S. Firm Reports Nintendo to Feds in Wiimote Patent Dispute"
This one is particularly important; not only have they lodged a complaint against Nintendo, but they've also complained directly the the International Trade Commission.

GP: "Nintendo Wiimote Hit with New Patent Lawsuit"
Original news posting; a company called Hillcrest Labs claims that the Wiimote infringes on a product of theirs called The Loop.

Kotaku: "U.S. Internation Trade Commission Investigating Wii Patent Infringement Case"

Kotaku: "Nintendo Responds to Trade Commission Investigation"

Yeah, so.....

There's a leak in my apartment. Maintenance dude said it's the pipe. They're going to come in tomorrow and cut into the sheet rock and fix it. So there's going to be a great lovely mess in here tomorrow. And I get to be home to deal with it all, including the wonderful workers with horrible accents who barely speak English. Some of them are quite nice, but it really is hard to understand them.

While I'm not busy moping and being annoyed/frustrated by this predicament, I will be working on the following:

Review of the anime Natsume Yuujinchou, Telepathy Shojou Ran, Cromartie High School, Chocolate Underground, and Itazura na Kiss, and the video game The World Ends With You.

Hurricane Ike

Fun times will abound this weekend as Hurricane Ike passes over my home state. I live in a city that is in the current projected path of the storm, but we don't expect anything more than some high winds and flash flooding. The storm will have died out quite a bit by the time it gets here. My latest weather reports are telling me to expect winds up to 35-45 MPH, with gusts up to 55 MPH; and around 4 inches of rain (at least). My family lives farther to the south than I do, but they're just to the west of the eye of the storm; though I expect they'll get their share of stormy weather too.

The storm is really something to behold. Lower Galveston was already flooded by around 2 or 3 this afternoon, and the main part of the storm won't even hit until 12-2 am this morning. Upper Galveston, which is protected by a sea wall, will likely flood as well once the storm hits land. I think just about the whole town is out of power right now. A mandatory evacuation is in effect for Galveston, though I hear about 40% of the population chose to ignore it, even with warnings of "imminent and certain death." That would certainly be enough for me to get the hell out of town, but I guess it's not enough for everyone. Houston residents were told to stay put in an effort to avoid deaths caused by mass evacuation (like during Hurricane Rita a few years ago).

I don't expect to lose any power where I live, as we live near a major airport. But the building's cable box downstairs is open again, so I'm sure all the wind and rain will cut out our cable and Internet (not that it's ever that great to begin with; the company is due another call from us soon).

If you're interested in seeing the power of the storm, there are some excellent videos to be found here, and all the major news stations are following the storm as well.

Sex in Otaku Culture

Here's an interesting article over at MSN, about sex in anime and the Otaku culture, and how it's spreading into the Otaku culture of the west.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26639577/

Here's the first part of the article, to give you an idea, in case you'd like to read the whole thing. It's not very long.

Anybody who doubts the rapidly growing influence of Japan's erotic cultural imports in the U.S. only has to spend a little time playing with a Hello Kitty vibrator while reading a fan-created pornographic Pokemon comic — or visit a “maid café” (now available near Los Angeles and Canada) where the waitresses all dress in costume — to realize it's not just a fringe subculture anymore.

There is a good argument to be made, based on those characters alone, that we are all “turning Japanese” as the '80s song goes — especially sexually.

These cartoony, sexualized characters are all part of otaku culture. Otaku is a Japanese word that has evolved from meaning "techno-geek" to describing devoted fans who pore over Japanese animation (anime), manga (graphic books), hentai (erotic comics) and other comics-derived media. As the recent fashion collaboration of designer Marc Jacobs and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami illustrates, otaku culture has become entrenched in the hip American mainstream.

Update: Securom

If you read my earlier news post that talked about the gamer lash out against Spore and EA's DRM, here's an update direct from EA itself.

In an apparent response, EA has declared that they will still be using the DRM (in regards to the upcoming game Red Alert 3), but you will get a whole whopping FIVE installations, instead of three. Um...yay?

As Kotaku rightly notes, this is not a developer decision; it is EA's. So if you wish to protest this, either don't buy these games at all (and hopefully you won't pirate them either; unless you first buy the game then pirate it anyway because you want your copy to actually work), or if you own the proper console, buy it for that instead of for the PC. This way their PC sales fall, but the game still gets sold and played (which will make developers happy). It's hard to punish a company without also punishing the developers, but there are ways.