Well, as my first post in a bit, I bring you Druaga no To: the Aegis of URUK, an anime version of the Tower of Druaga, a long-timey dungeon crawler from Namco. We got the Fushigi no Dungeon version for the PS2 a few years back, and it serves as an enjoyable introduction to the roguelike genre for those of you scared off by the depth and inscrutability of nethack and Shiren.
Anyhoo, the important thing here is that it’s a laughable sort of idea to begin with, given that roguelikes as a whole aren’t exactly noted for their character and plot depth. And yes, I do know about Izuna, but that’s an exception rather than the rule. Upon further thought though, DnT: tAoU (God, I love acronym-ing things) might prove to be an enjoyable sorcery and steel hackfest, always a good thing for an old time Final Fantasy and DnD fan. The few vague hints I’ve heard about it seem to say that it’s not a turd either. Joy!
Also, enjoy the poster shot:
EDIT: Also, it appears that GONZO is more or less officially translating and subbing two of their shows, Druaga and Blassreiter, and is releasing them on a number of outlets. Blassreiter’s a solo GONZO project, so expect lots of CGI and boobs. Probably CGI boobs too!
Point one: Redux is a Latin word, more precisely an infinitive paired with the particle re-. Re- essentially adds the idea of going back to whatever word it’s stuck on to. See: Return, refund, rebate, etc. Dux is an infinitive of the verb “to lead”, and when you pair it with “re-” you get “to lead back,” or something approximating that given the wide field of meaning Latin has.
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Point two: I wanted to get some use out of those two years of Latin I took in college, so suffer with my nerdy tendencies please.
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Point three: After watching most of the first half of Gundam 00 over the last few months, I started wondering to myself how the SEED series stacked up to it. That lead to watching both SEED series over again (third time for SEED, second time for Destiny) and this time actually watching SEED Destiny Final Plus (Basically the Death and Rebirth of G SEED Destiny). I think 00 is technically better than both SEED series, but mostly from a technical standpoint (ha). 00 obviously had far more time and money invested in it than either SEED series, but the characterizations in the SEED series (along with the music, as I love Toshihiko Sahashi’s work) seem less one-dimensional in comparison to 00. They aren’t, really, but the relatively more focused development in SEED’s casts lends it a more personalized aspect than 00’s so far. Since 00 is only half over, it’s a bit unfair I suppose, but the Gundam series need more kotetsu ojous like Lacus from SEED, and the current lack of one in 00 is hurting it for me.
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Destiny in particular is a bit of a thorny subject, since it almost jumps the shark a few times in the second half, narrowly avoiding so by the thinnest of plot and character developments. Maybe it was intentional, or maybe the then current Hajime Yatate group was sleeping at the wheel. It wouldn’t be quite so irritating if it didn’t take me the second watch through to get all of the connections and other crap that justified the second half’s plot twists, and if the damned series didn’t end about ten minutes too soon. Destiny’s biggest problem wasn’t the narrative snafus, but rather the fact that it had an end but no ending. It literally ends with the final misguidedly evil guy going down with his overpowered space fortress and the defeated heroes-turned-villains watching in horror as their boss bites a flaming big one.
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That wouldn’t be a problem if it was a mere season break, since cliffhangers are a time honored way of getting your audience back come next season, but if you end a flipping series on that note you get the torch and pitchfork crew coming after you. Destiny does it even more incompetently by cramming a barrel full of plot and character developments into three or four of the last ten episodes just to barely justify the second season’s plot by utterly ruining its pacing and concentrating all of two seasons’ plots into a large chunk of the final season. It then proceeds to leave all of the loose ends loose with its “end,” and it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Apparently Sunrise realized this and released Final Plus, a sort of Director’s Cut of the last two episodes with a new 10 minute epilogue tacked onto the end to actually “end” Destiny. It also added numerous retcons and changes to fix a number of really irritating plot holes and OOC moments, and it’s generally what you should watch instead of the last two TV episodes of Destiny. Too bad Shinn’s still a whiny chump at the end though.
Just a quickie post here to remind the readership that I’m still breathing.
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Anime fans this year are going to be deluged with bucketsful of mecha anime; Gundam 00’s first half is coming to a close, the second part coming in October. Then there’s the second part of Code Geass, a sort of CLAMP-designed revisioning of Gundam, and finally, Macross: F[rontier].
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It’s been about six years since Macross Zero, the prequel to the whole shebang which we still haven’t gotten here. It’s odd for a number of reasons, perhaps the most important being that Macross in the form of Robotech, and earlier the Star Blazer [Space Battleship Yamato] series are the biggest reasons anime has any sort of foothold in America at all. Beyond the living-in-Mom’s-basement crowd, anyway.
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At any rate, this is important because it’s also the first full length Macross series since 7 fourteen years ago, and its being animated by Satelight, arguably one of the best animation companies in Japan especially with their computer animation. Considering the sheer energy of the special first episode that was aired a few months back as a teaser, it’s hard not to be excited. Granted, it’s not high art, and the series’ continued focus on music and its strange power (in the Macross Universe, anyway) is bound to show up in one form or another.
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Personally, I just love the idea of fighters jetting around in space and blowing the hell out of anything that moves.
…A HEAH being a Horror to End All Horrors, of which today’s was seeing some stoned/drunk/nutzo black guy on the bus sagging so far down I could see his whiteys and the outline of his junk through them. Combine that with his weaving all over the place and him smelling like an open sewer made me want to claw my eyes out and rip my nose off at the same time.
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Now that I’ve utterly disgusted everyone, on the to the positive end of today’s topic! Read more
More anime suggestions from me, in the form of little blurbs and whatnot. Today’s selections are Heroic Age, a sort of space opera show w/giant monsters duking it out, and Kimikiss pure rouge, a high school slice of life/romance following three childhood friends and their (mostly) separate love triangles.
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Also an aside in the form of me noting that I’m starting to work on my long on hiatus anime articles. Still have to a bunch of work on them, but look forward to me rambling about Heat Guy J and King of Bandits Jing in the nearish future. Read more
First off, some brief administrative business and notes:
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1. Putting my “serious” anime articles/reviews/etc. under “anime” tags, since a recent thread on Talking Time has pointed out the etymology of “Animu.” WTF Japan and other non-serious anime related stuff will still be filed under Animu though.
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2. Starting next week I’m going to go through a trial revival of my old Anime Release column, which will focus on a few titles more in depth rather than quick hits on a bunch of titles. Maybe. Still of mixed feelings about it.
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3. I’ll eventually start posting some of my fiction writings and other associated mental lint, but that may be a while because I’m lazy and this Wordpress theme doesn’t like extra lines between paragraphs. Not that it would be particularly annoying for fiction type stuff, but annoying to me.
Anyway…. Read more
