Winter 2010 Edition -- What was lost is found

So I started cleaning my room.  I do like my room clean and I needed to desperately clean my stuff up...but there was another reason for tearing my room apart and rearranging my junk: I had no idea where my PSP was!

Back during Winter break, I went back home to my parents place to hang out with them and see my sister and brother-in-law for the holidays.  My bro-in-law David is an avid Kingdom Hearts fan and gaming fan just as I am.  So I figured I'd bring all my gaming junk like my DS (acutally, Andrew's DSlite) and PSP to play with him.  When we went back home, everything was packed in various bags and the like.  I had no need to play my PSP for a good long while, so I set it aside and it was forgotten.

Fast-forward to yesterday when I find that I NEED to play the Lunar: Silver Star Harmony demo.  You know, this stuff --

and now I have found my PSP.  In short, my room is still kind of in shambles, but some parts are cleaned up and I'm well on my way to a cleaner room and I got my PSP.  Happy day!  Got the demo, beat it, saved clear data for the real game, and pre-ordered the limited edition (pictured above) so I get the BADASS soundtrack (it's the original score completely redone for this release done by the same ingenious man Noriyuki Iwadare) and bromide cards.  SWEET!

Yeah, I'm kind of a big LUNAR fan.  It was my first RPG (other than Pokemon) when I was 11 or so when my uncle Timmy rented it, didn't like RPGs and had it out on rental for a week.  He knows I like cartoony junk like this, so he lets me play it for the duration of his rental.  Being the young pirate I was, I had my dad burn a copy of the game, soundtrack, and making of disc to use in my modded PS1 before sending it back to Premiere Video.  I played it, set it down for a year or two, then came back and beat the hell out of that game and still jam out to the soundtrack to this day.

Anyhow, besides Bioshock 2 and other various games, I've watched a little more Dragon Box Z2.  Vegeta just kicked the crap outta Zarbon, Son Goku got his butt handed to him by a malfunctioning artificial gravity machine, and Kuririn is an idiot who accidentally got caught by Vegeta.

I watched one more episode of Tenchi Muyo! GXP where Seina was on his ship training as a Galaxy Police cadet.  Good times!

More to report later, and if you love RPGs, XSEED is releasing LUNAR: Silver Star Harmony in the US on March 2nd.  BUY IT!

Winter 2010 Edition -- Weekend of Little Anime

Yo, everyone!

Funny thing, I didn't get to watch much this weekend.  Having a car accident and then getting absorbed into Bioshock really sapped my time, besides work of course.  And I am so close to beating Bioshock I can taste it.  Anime will be put on the back burner for now.

BUT I did do SOME watching.

I got my stuff in last week, like I said.  So, since my Magical Project S set is episodes 14-26 and Randy here hasn't even seen episode 1, I haven't touched it.  Pretty Sammy/Mihoshi Special on the other hand I DID watch.

The Mihoshi Special was...different.  It was released in Japan halfway through the first two OVA sessions (why it wasn't included in the OVA collection that was released is beyond me.  Increased sales, maybe?)  and had the same budget and the like of the OVA series and that is a total plus.  What was odd was (Oh yeah, I watched it in English, BTW) that the voices sounded a bit off.  No no no, its the same cast, but our star of this show was Mihoshi and she did not nail Mihoshi as she did during the OVA.  Can anyone tell me abouts when this was dubbed relative to other Tenchi media?  For that matter, I would like to know how the whole of Tenchi was dubbed period.  From what I can gather, it seemed like this would have been something up on the block first out of everything since some lines weren't on par with the rest of the series.  Then again, maybe it was done somewhere in the middle (the original Mihoshi VA is here, after all) and the actors really couldn't care less?  Who knows.

So, the story was interesting (telling of Mihoshi's Galaxy Police exploits by substituting Tenchi and company in the roles of people in the GP.  We also have Kiyone being a majoy role in a non TV/movie appearance, which was different and awesome.  Does this mean that GP Kiyone is actually a real, canon person in the Tenchi Muyo! universe?  Hmmm...

All in all, it was okay, but not great.

Pretty Sammy:

Okay, so its a magical girl anime using Tenchi Muyo! character likenesses to invent a whole new show.  It looks nice, the music and sounds are recycled from the OVA/TV series (that's a plus) and its actually pretty entertaining.  I just wish, after being spoiled by the likes of Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura, that the special attacks and transformations had a little more pizazz to them as well as a bit more quality too them.  They aren't treated as something special with a higher budget and a higher frame count.  It's just another scene and doesn't really tell us to be wowed.

The story was short, 3 episode OVA, and was interesting in how everything was shown and each episode was distinctly different than the last.  Definitely worth the money for this set.

So, what's next?  Well, I still have that backlog of anime to watch (AFTER I finish Bioshock, of course) and finishing that Dragon Box.

Speaking of which, back when I got the first one super early in November, I recorded a video review of the product, but never got to editing and polishing it up.  I was itching for a creative outlet so I went ahead and did it.  Yeah, I won't post it cuz its MONTHS old and pointless at this point, but I think I did a good job and maybe I'll do some video reviews of things as time goes on.  Are you interested?  Let me know what you think.

Later!!

Legend of Dragonworld Saves the Day

Guess what arrives today?

 

  

Actually, that Magical Project S shot is from the first set, RightStuf only had the second, but it was cheaper than other online retailers so I snagged it while I could.  That Pretty Sammy/Mihoshi Special is also one of the last dozen that RightStuf had and since it's long since out of print, I thought I really should get it while the getting was good.  Where does that put me now?  Well, I only need Magical Project S Part 1 to complete my entire Tenchi Muyo! library.  FINALLY!!!  It really had been a dream ever since I was, oh, about 14 and got in my Malaysian VCD edited copy of the original Tenchi Muyo! OVA collection.

Let's see, what else is there?

Well, I'm on disc 2 of Dragon Box Vol. 2 and LOVING IT!  I forgot how much I really enjoy the Namek arc.  Every time I sit down to watch it and think "Okay, just get through this fast so you can get to the Ginyu and Freeza stuff," and I get 2 minutes into it and realize I love these episodes too.  Toriyama was really in his zone for writting for this arc.  Everything is so intricately interwoven and there aren't any gaping plot holes and the art (when its a good animation studio) is jaw-dropping gorgeous.  What else can I say?  I love me some Dragon Ball.

Speaking of which; I don't know how any of you (anyone actually there?) have something they enjoy so very much to the point where you can't stand to listen to other people talk about it because they don't understand it or just are talking out of there ass, but Dragon Ball is that to me.

I was sitting in class, waiting for stuff to get going.  Just sitting at my computer, doin' whatever when a couple of guys across the room start talking about Dragon Ball...like idiots.  Just, everything felt so wrong.  Did I have a panic attack?  Hyperventilate?  Piss my pants?  Cry like a little girl?  No, but maybe all of those happened to the little me in my head; instead I quickly reached for my Zune and started up some Legend of Dragonworld to help save me.  Ahh, real Dragon Ball goodness without the taintedness of other non-passionate, ill-informed fans surrounding me.

I'm sure I can think of a couple of people I know that might feel/react the same way, so if you think I'm freaking off my rocker with this little story, you don't know me well :D

Hmmm...I'm sure there is more, but I'm distracted by needing to get out of this classroom in the next couple of minutes and knowing I can't watch GXP on the bus ride home since Randy the ever amazing idiot he is somehow screwed up getting the subtitles on his episodes so he'd be watching them raw if he chose to watch them today.  Sigh.  I know some would say, "This is why you should just watch it in English and you wouldn't have these problems," and yeah, that's true.  But it all comes down to personal preference and I'm too invested in these actors and their portrayal of their roles to enjoy the series any other way, even if it means not enjoying it temporarily at all.

Anyhow, guess I'm about to get kicked out, so I will see you all later!