Perhaps That Was A Mistake

What do you do if you're an anime villain who's just been told by your nemesis that, if possible, he wants to win without anyone dying, even you?

Apparently, say "you can't save everybody!" and kill yourself. At least, that's what Exkaiser's enemy, Dino Geist, did.



Real bright and stable fellow, that Dino Geist.

-Signing off.

Guess This Is '90s Anime Robot Week

In the sense that I know what this is factually, I really shouldn't say "What the heck was that?" (It's a music video made up of insane and wacky clips from a Brave Robot series called Brave Police J-Decker, set to perhaps the funniest Japanese song that isn't about Airman that I've ever heard [and I say this without understanding a lick of it]. Note that there are one or two kinda inappropriate things in the video.)



But still...

What the heck was that?!

I'll have that humming bit going through my head for hours...

-Signing off.

Crazy Headlines

I don't care where you live. Nobody would have newspaper stories weirder than Japan in anime land.



"Today, in a bizarre incident involving a battle between various giant robots, a demonic tree riding a spaceship defeated three robots, causing their souls to combine into a giant sword that promptly fell onto a school, prompting the school to transform into a rainbow-emitting airship equipped to support giant robots."

That, my friends, is certified Grade A crazy.

-Signing off.

Great Standard Speech

The YouTube user who posted this video poses the question "Great standard speech, or greatest standard speech*?"



I'll go with the latter, I think.

*People who watch only dubbed anime (or don't watch anime) might be at a loss here, as most dubbed anime drop the "standard speech" thing. A lot of anime aimed at a relatively younger audience (i.e. mostly shonen) has phrases that their characters repeat over and over and over again. Of course, one can't help missing it if they can't find good subtitled versions and speak only English (as is usually the case for me).

-Signing off.

Shouldn't Have Used Live Ammo

Ah, anime children antics.



For reference, the people laughing at the children are the pilots of Combattler V.



I don't think they have much room to laugh (well, except for the fact that their own weapons work, I guess...).

-Signing off.

Killer Robot Unicorn

I'm not liable to get involved in the whole recent My Little Pony buzz, for a number of reasons that include my little sister feeding hers to Inhumanoids when she was little (for the record, my sister is awesome) and the fact that I'll probably always think of Charlie the Unicorn.

That, and the fact that they can never compare to this guy.

This guy, Ginzan, is from the Transformers-like kiddie anime Daigunder, a series about putting robots through brutal fights for fun and profit. Ginzan doesn't follow those rules, though-he prefers announcing his presence to unsuspecting individuals with a hail of heavy weapons fire, swooping in and just generally shooting the heck out of everybody in sight.

He basically kicks more rear end than many characters from much more serious robot anime, and he does it with an "ultimate attack" that shoots a giant electrical unicorn head.

Now that's a cool horse.

-Signing off.

Gundam: The Whole Story

The trailer for an upcoming Gundam series, GundamAGE, is ticking off long-time Gundam fans (it seriously has almost three times as many dislikes on this posting of it than likes, which is crazy disproportionate). Actual negative comment I've seen on this trailer: "AGE Gundam [no, silly, GundamAGE!]? More like UNDERAGE Gundam!"



Ironically, some have said that this will finally be the Gundam series that the original sponsors of the first Gundam series wanted-a lone heroic super robot going up against an army of villains. (In effect, yet another of the typical super robot series of its era of origin. The Gundam series itself created what is known as the "real robot" genre [or the "mecha" genre in English-speaking countries], which generally includes larger-scale warfare, mass production mecha, and intrigue and politics usually inspired by real world history. Incidentally, the original Gundam series was very unsuccessful, but was vindicated by history in similar fashion to Star Trek in the states, popular in reruns and with many sequels.)

Gundam as such has gotten... kind of repetitive, though, which means that a summary like this can tell you almost everything you need to know.



Dude failed to mention that almost every Gundam series (and many other mecha-type series made by Sunrise, Gundam's studio) has the protagonist in a white robot and the masked antagonist/rival in a red robot. Even Escaflowne, whose red robot pilot has no visible mask (I won't say more because, well, SPOILERS!!1!).

In fact, the series Gurren Lagann, which I've recently mentioned, seems to parody or at least give a nod to this tendency, because the protagonists wear sunglasses and goggles and pilot a red robot, while their primary rival/antagonist type pilots a white robot. (Of course, Gurren Lagann is both a mecha/real robot series and a super robot series, and more, but... Well, it's hard to pin down in a single blog post what Gurren Lagann is. Other than awesome, I mean.)

Also, while G Gundam ("Shining Finger!") is admittedly silly, at least it isn't a clone of every other Gundam series like... every other Gundam series.

-Signing off.

Game Reviews: Legitimate Tower Defense

Legitimate Tower Defense (or "Legitimate TD") is a game in the style of a tower defense game, but with a twist or two-you're trying to build your turrets on actual skyscrapers (i.e. towers, geddit?).

If you can't defend them from things, such as this bomb, they get demolished and you can't build on them anymore. If too many things bypass the towers and hit the ground, you lose.

The other thing about this game is that the enemies are ridiculous. I've seen a school bus and subcompact cars, and I saw people in the comments cursing Chuck Norris and the Soviet flag.

It's kind of fun to watch, but unfortunately, for me personally, it isn't much fun to play. Why? Because it's too darned fast, and no pause button. Generally, I'm not a quick master clicker, and you kind of have to be in order to survive more than a few levels.

So, if you're a better player than me, you could probably have fun playing this game. If not, you probably won't have as much fun.

-Signing off.

Evil Heterodyne Coffee

It should be noted that Dai-Guard is actually slightly older than Girl Genius, so the use of the term "Heterodyne" is a coincidence.



The fact that there's reference to "Heterodyne coffee" when the Girl Genius comic features a magic coffee machine made by the titular character which made "Heterodyne coffee." (Note that "Heterodyne" just means "different energy.")

-Signing off.

Coulda Made This A Theme Week

Specifically, a Japanese anime super robot/mecha series week. Except I did something totally unrelated on Wednesday. (shrugs)

In this scene from the anime OVA (straight-to-video series/movie, which has completely different implications in Japan than in English-speaking countries) Gunbuster, the titular mecha supposedly racks up 250,000,000 kills. (Yes, 250 million. In that one scene. Which is less than four minutes of screentime.)



Don't worry, they're all just monsters. Space monsters.

(And if you're wondering why I'm talking about it, Gunbuster was one of the first works of Gainax, which made Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which I talked about yesterday. I've never watched Gunbuster and have no particular plans to do so, but I can appreciate it as being an ancestor of Gurren Lagann.)

-Signing off.

Super Robot Profiles: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

I am so frikkin' high on Gurren Lagann right now. Because I just finished watching it maybe ten or fifteen minutes ago.

What am I saying?

Well, Gurren Lagann (complete English dub release available for free on YouTube!) is one of the most popular anime of the last decade (and of all time, really), and for good reason: It is awesome.

(If you haven't seen it, don't Google it or read any other sites for it. Just go watch it.)

I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I'll try to use more than simple "LOL EPIC" to bring across just what this series is.

Gurren Lagann is a series where symbolism is more important than physics; where determination trumps probabilities; where emotion means more than literal events. In other words, first and foremost, it's a story about fictional people.

And it never pretends that it isn't.

On the other hand, it's a series where events have real consequences. Gurren Lagann never steps back or retcons away events; it unabashedly goes into what happens next, always pushing forward.

Because that is the way a drill works.

The series is both funny and deadly serious. This is not a contradiction, although it gets more serious and less funny as it continues.

The characters are enormous hams, and this is not a bad thing. (More questionable is the often distracting fanservice, which I don't especially care for [it's not very attractive a lot of the time, although sometimes I admit I laughed at the audacity of it], but you take the bad with the good with a series like this.)

Really, to say more than that is to say too much, but it's still not enough. I'm not even sure what else to say.

-Signing off.

Game Reviews: Red Moon

Red Moon is a game that's graphically beautiful that tries to make dumb excuses for why it isn't beautiful.

The game's graphics are simple and elegant, and they do what they need to do extremely well. And they look good.

But apparently the guy who made them is defensive about how he's not good at animating things that aren't silhouettes, because he came up with some stupid backstory about how the characters in his games are made of shadows (although this game doesn't mention that).

It's totally unnecessary, and almost completely irrelevant. You won't care what the characters are supposed to be made of, you'll be enjoying the game, including the graphics.

Anyway, gameplay is quite simple. You can perform very rapid attacks that generally stun your opponents; most combat is pretty one-sided even if you use only the most basic attack. You can crouch and hold down the attack button to do more damage with fewer attacks, although this is not often relevant-most enemies will go down quickly to a flurry of your weaker attacks. This includes lesser bosses.

A few areas into the game, your mentor tells you how to use power attacks, and here's where things get fun. Your power attack bar is filled by hitting enemies; the more you hit enemies, the faster it fills. When it's full, you can do this...

...which is even more awesome than it looks like, because it travels more than a full screen and kills most enemies instantly, throws back any enemies it somehow doesn't kill, and takes half of even a full-fledged boss's health. (Of course, you generally only get one per boss fight, even though the power attack will partly refill your power attack bar when it hits an enemy. If you hit enough enemies with it, you can potentially get something like half a bar back from a power attack.)

The game features wall jumps and double jumps, and while these are perhaps the most seamless implementations of such I've ever seen in a game, unfortunately the obstacles in later parts of the game are such that I personally can't get past a certain area which looks like it ought to be passable.

Up to that point, though, Red Moon is a blast to play and a visual treat, and I can heartily recommend it.

-Signing off.

ROCKETTO PAUNCH

I don't know that much about the anime Dai-Guard (or Dai Guard, or even "Di Guard"), but something tells me I'd like to know more.

That something is this video.



Some people actually call Dai-Guard a "real robot" (i.e. a non-super robot mecha) disguised as a super robot, and even say it's more realistic than most "real robots." That last bit might be an exaggeration, but from what I've heard, it's not much of one.

-Signing off.

IT'S A GUNDAM

WHAT! A GUNDAM?

(Note that there's a bit of bad language at the end there.)



(The person who posted the video commented that it was as if none of these people had ever seen a Gundam before; someone else commented that since most people who saw Gundams in this series would shortly thereafter die in massive explosions, most of them hadn't.)

-Signing off.

Game Reviews: Tepiiku

Tepiiku is a dice-based flash game with a twist.

Instead of numbers, each side of each die has six symbols. These symbols are ingot, gem, fire, water, person, and skull. Ingot and gem are worth one and two respectively, fire is worth three and water four, but if you have one or more of each, they don't count, person counts for a number equal to the number of persons (e.g. if you have three, each counts as three), and skull is minus two.

Gameplay is something like a wagering-oriented card game. You can reroll dice repeatedly if you think you can get a higher score. Once rolling and rerolling is done, the player with the lowest score pays to the person with the highest.

It's a surprisingly interesting game with some depth you don't expect. I enjoy it.

-Signing off.

You Could Have Just Said "Hi"

I'm not sure if this is the best or worst secret handshake I've ever seen.



It's certainly the most involved...

-Signing off.

Is It Just Me...

...or are two final bosses duking it out with each other while spouting their already hammy dialogue hilarious?



-Signing off.

Sorry (I Blame Kamina)

This is partly my fault, and partly the fault of somebody else turning off the computer when it should have stayed on.

But it's really MANGAentertainment's fault, because they posted Gurren Lagann on their official YouTube channel and I've been watching it.

Gurren Lagann, people. On YouTube. The whole thing.

What amazes me isn't that they did it, but that I didn't figure it out earlier. (It's been there since late 2009.)

-Signing off and wearing impossible sunglasses.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #14

131. Cacop. You remember that guy from Episode I who got un-elected due to Senator-then-Chancellor Palpatine's machinations? Terence Stamp or something? He apparently broke up a corruption ring on the Cacops' homeworld, Veccacopia, which relied on the Cacops being visually indistinguishable to outsiders.

Kinda typical, but it works and is creative, even if it was totally unnecessary to get backstory on that guy.

Rating: 2/5. We know basically nothing else about them, but that's a pretty decent exploration of how a species might use such a characteristic against outsiders.

132. Calian. "Primitives" who can't speak the galactic tongue (Basic/English), yet still use repulsorcraft and blasters?

Who remarkably resemble humans?

Who have a stupid stereotypical ability based on a racist assumption about Wookiees?

And who were actually a means for Marvel to use repurposed art produced for their lost license for John Carter of Mars in a Star Wars comic?

What the flip?

Rating: 0/5. This never happened. Never.

133. Calibop. Calibops are giant dirty bird people. One of them was president of the universe boss of the galaxy Chief of State of the New Republic for a while.

Rating: 3/5. We don't know much about them, but they first appeared in a Zahn book, and you know how I feel about those (if you've been here for a while, anyway).

134. Cannolite. Cannolites use common locks that most people found unopenable (unless, presumably, excessive force is involved). This has something to do with their culture.

Rating: 2/5. I kind of like but also kind of dislike this. I find it hard to believe that someone of another species couldn't be trained to use their locks, at least.

135. Cantrosian. A scratch from a Cantrosian's paw will cause Cantrosian scratch fever.

Wait a minute, we're not to "c-a-t" yet! What's up with the cat alien?

Rating: 1/5. "Cantrosian scratch fever?" Weak.

136. Caridan. Caridans are bandylegged dudes from Carida, a planet used as a stormtrooper training world because of its higher than average gravity.

Their legs are long and thin, and their bodies are heavy. And they live on a planet with heavy gravity.

Who thought this up?!

Rating: 1/5. Learn some physics, Mr. Anderson.

137. Carosite. Limited reproductive capacity turned the Carosites into a race of pacifistic doctors. "Each" Carosite can only reproduce twice in its lifetime, with a litter of up to six.

Wait, that's limited?

Rating: 1/5. I'm still trying to figure that one out...

138. Carthasian. Carthasians are cool-looking. They're also involved in one of Star Wars' relatively few canonical time travel stories, but we won't hold that against them.

Rating: 3/5. We know little about them, but like I say: They look cool.

139. Cathar. The Cathar have two subspecies, big bulky ones (surely by coincidence, all of them seem to be male) and smaller, more humanoid ones (surely also by coincidence, all of them seem to be female). They're also cat people.

Coincidence my eye.

Rating: 2/5. Um, because they're better than Cantrosians?

140. Catuman. Cat people who were natural mercenaries... Okay, just no.

Rating: 1/5. I like cats, but there are entirely too many warrior cat races in Star Wars alone, not merely science fiction/fantasy/space opera as a whole.

And I thought last time was bad.

-Signing off.

Something Out of Place

Which one of these things doesn't belong?

Oops, gave it away.

-Signing off.

Contemplating the Mortality of the Crab

(The title is based on this idiom.

I've got a blog post going up hypothetically simultaneously on my sister's Yu-Gi-Oh! blog, but at this precise moment I can't put a link to the post up, for various odd Blogger platform reasons. I'll add the link tomorrow.)

Ants versus crabs.



FATALITY!

Ants: 1, Crab: dead.

-Signing off.

It May Actually Be Dumber Than Those Yo-Yos

(If anyone saw this as an untitled post with no text, I was just double-checking to see if the embed worked, seeing as how sometimes I get YouTube regional blocking when I embed this kind of thing.)

I've remarked in the past that the super robot Combattler V has a pretty ridiculous weapon.



Not completely ridiculous, as they're also buzzsaw yo-yos as well as yo-yos on the end of magic forcefields/lightning bolts instead of strings, but still ridiculous.

Now, what I'm showing you doesn't technically qualify as a bizarre anime weapon, but it is a bizarre thing to make an anime about.



Grander Musashi is an anime about bass fishing. The characters use legendary lures that take design cues from mecha anime. This is incredibly stupid and hilariously brilliant. There's even a "God Legender" (i.e. magic lure), which can catch any fish regardless of conditions and control other Legenders. Seriously.

I both want to watch this and never want to watch this.

-Signing off.