Fuckin’ Reapers

Another season of Anime has arrived and I’ve yet to start/finish all the ones from last and last-last season so… It’s a good thing there aren’t any good ones this season for me to pick up… Sigh… Zetman or the new Eureka Seven, maybe? The manga has been slow thus far… Scratch that. The anime is awesome and took a slightly different direction from the manga. Watching this awesomeness.

I missed the latest Music Monday so below is a video for all of you to enjoy.

Stop Ruining My Childhood

23

Review

Fam Fan Fan is a young and highly enthusiastic female sky pirate with the dream to fly in the Grand Race that once brought together all the nations. Unfortunately her world has been torn by war since the Ades Federation decided to annex all other nations in the intent to unite and rule all under their young and manipulated Empress. Fam and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of the war when they save two Turan Princesses after their country’s annihilation.

Overall this series was deeply disappointing. It had almost nothing to do with the original series (sucks as a standalone too) and all the cameos made by previous casts were basically pointless. The first series created a fascinating world with beautiful characters and deep and a moving storyline. This series had an annoying female version of Naruto – loud, obnoxious, immature, and oblivious – almost throughout the entire series. The only time she said something that showed any sign of growing up was within the last ten minutes of the last episode. By then it was too late and much too convenient. As a matter of fact, the whole war, master plan and “villain” were pointless by the end. If you’re going to give up your life’s goal because of a two minute speech from a crying 16 year old girl, then why bother? This series was poorly written and annoyed me to no end. The best episode was the recap episode that covered the first series. Other than that, complete garbage in the attempt to appeal to the modern day fanservice-eating drone. Just watch the first series.

Rating

5.0

Camera? Check.
Tourist outfit? Check.
Empty suitcase inside a suitcase to be filled with goodies? Check.

I’ll be checking the site from time to time but won’t be posting any new content until I’m back – unless something amazing happens and I need to blog about it. I’ll be sure to take pictures. If anyone has suggestions on where to visit in these countries, feel free to comment.

Danny Choo is the Man

22

Review

After the events of “Lost Christmas,” an alien virus outbreak that occurred in Japan ten years ago, its citizens find itself under the oppressive rule of GHQ to “contain” the situation. When a quiet and indecisive high school student named Shu Ouma encounters the stoic and beautiful singer named Inori, he finds himself involved in the resistant group called Funeral Parlor. Led by Gai Tsutsugami, they fight against GHQ with a mysterious power stolen from their headquarters. Unfortunately, the power is accidentally obtained by Shu in his desperation to save Inori. Called the “Power of Kings,” it allows the user to extract powerful weapons from individual’s hearts. Using this power, Shu rediscovers himself and the past in which he has suppressed for so long.

This show sucks. Everyone had such high expectations for it, considering it was the people that brought us Death Note and Code Geass. However when working together they create THIS garbage. It was such a waste of redjuice’s art. It wasn’t just horrible writing, but inconsistent character traits, unnecessary use of fanservice and an annoying main character that wouldn’t stop whining 90% of the series. To add to it all, the heroine was just boring and lacked a personality.

This series is another case of what “could have been” if it had a plot that didn’t have plot holes and poor use of shocks and twists to engross bored viewers. In much of the series, you are scratching your head at the decisions characters make through their inconsistent way of reacting to things – so much so that you swear 16 people tried to write the scene and it ended up as a horrible mash-up of everyone’s input. The pacing is horrible as it tries to mix high school antics within what is supposed to be an action-based show. Lastly, you either get so bored or angry at characters, that after 5 episodes in, you’re wondering why you’re still watching and hoping things get better. Well it doesn’t. Overall this series is garbage, but it gets the rating I’m giving it because it was shiny and what Shounen is, after all. During its run, I had the privilege of exploiting the popularity of the series, through making graphics to increase traffic to this site. So soak it all up, fanboys…

Rating

6.2

Oh Bioware... You tickle me.

First off, I’d like to note that unlike 99% of the community, I don’t hate the endings as much as I should. This is probably because in my game’s universe, everything is pretty fucked up already. I’ll explain later. What I didn’t like about the endings is how inconsistent and impossible some of the ending scenes were. This is basically the gist of my universe:

• Wrex is dead. (In the first game, I didn’t know we had to max out on Renegade or Paragon points and barely talked to the shipmates after each mission. I was sort of a noob.)
• Ashley is dead. (I play FemShep and didn’t care for her racism, snotty attitude and I was chasing after Kaidan. I also distinctly remember at the time that since Kaidan was assigned to the nuke or something, it was strategically wiser to go to his location to save him, regardless of my relationships.)
• My entire crew was saved in ME2 because I finally learned how to play the game. I played as a bad ass Renegade.
• While playing ME3, I didn’t like Wreav’s threat to wage war for revenge once we got rid of the Reapers, but agreed to cure the Genophage because I felt for Mordin’s cause and my boyfriend had told me I should save them… FORGETTING THAT IN MY GAME, WREX IS DEAD. Basically when he found out I didn’t have Wrex, he was like… “Oh… You can trick Wreav into believing it’s cured because he’s stupid.” And Mordin and Eve died.  (My first facepalm moment in the game.)
• I fucked up and let Samara shoot herself in the head. Meh… (Second facepalm)
• Finally, my greatest fuck up in the game was the fact that I didn’t have enough Renegade points to convince the Geth and Quarians to stop firing on each other. Under the suggestion of my boyfriend, ONCE AGAIN, I let Legion go through with the upload because I liked him, but then the Quarians died and Tali killed herself…. F&$#$^$*CK!

You missed out on all my funny comments Shepard. You suck.

Soooo… In my universe, my Shepard is a trigger-happy asshole that ensured the Krogans would rise up and wage massive wars on everyone that crossed them and I fuckin killed the Quarians. Now on to the endings…

For my final mission I chose Kaidan and Garrus to accompany me. One was my love interest and the other was my best friend. Seemed about right. Now the first weird moment I noticed was when everyone was running towards the giant Reaper beam to reach the Citadel. I looked behind me and Garrus and Kaidan were no longer in sight… Okaaaay… Thought you guys had my back, soldiers. Whatever. The beam hits my face and I’m fried alive. Oh no wait, I’m just slightly burned, sluggish and bleeding. Can’t say everyone else around me looks the same. Whatever, beam me up Scotty! I’m inside the Citadel and Anderson is there… Looking alive and well. Wait, how’d you get there ahead of me? Then the whole Illusive Man chatter, blah blah, Anderson dies and things were looking okay… Until the God Child came…

Everyone hates the use of a random Deus Ex Machina to explain something as intricate as the Mass Effect world, but what bothered me wasn’t the fact that Bioware decided to use one. It was the fact that it was a kid. Small children are always used in movies and crap to portray innocence (as this kid was in the beginning of the game), although creepy apparitions of them are always a bad sign. Worse is when you have to listen to them speak for so long and not get the choice to smack them upside the head, as I know my designed Shepard would do. God child, or not.

Ew... Nerds...

Then finally, the Citadel fires, Mass relays explode, inexplicably Joker is already in a relay away from the fight and crash lands on a distant planet somewhere… With Kaidan and Javik (DLC Prothean character) following him and gazing into the sunset… WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE. Kaidan was with me on EARTH, fighting right behind me, before he abandoned me to the giant Reaper beam, no? Then why the fuck is he alive and well and how did he get on the Normandy, if it should have been fighting in space? Why would Joker pick up the crew and leave me?

So no chicks on board with us huh? Oh Kaaaaidaaaaaan...

So yea. Open-ended endings I don’t mind as much as I should, since I like the feeling of having my thoughts run rampant. However not everyone likes that, so the 16 different endings Bioware promised should be distinctive from each other. Not all one ending with minor tweaks of who shows up watching the sunset. Because all that is certain now is either Earth is destroyed (because you suck at the game so much as to have below 1350 effective military strength) but most importantly, the entire fleet that followed you to Earth are all stranded there due to the Mass Relays being destroyed… Which means all the pregnant females I left in Tachunka will be the next rulers of their kind, since most able-bodied male soldiers are on Earth, eating and raping everyone as resources run out. Asari and Turians, who cannot eat human food will be the first to die, unless they evolve super quickly to digest human meat. Oh, you know humans are the lowest on the food chain on Earth. The only humans that have it good are the humans in other galaxies and planets prior to the Mass Relays being destroyed. Like the old guy and his grandson at the end.

Thanks Bioware. Was that a happy ending, or was it a sad one? Why didn’t we hear an echoing scream of despair from Earth, with that scene of the kid and his grandfather? I guess you assumed we wouldn’t think past that far huh?

You know it's bad when people prefer the "It was all a dream" route...

Finally the idea that in order to preserve life, synthetic lifeforms (Reapers) were created to harvest and kill off intelligent organics before the machines they created wage war seems hypocritical. If anything, it makes the God Child seem like he’s the one playing with life and ruling as he sees fit. In this cycle, Shepard was “different” from all the others in the past in that he/she succeeded to finally meet the God Child, or the fact that he/she was able to unite the galaxy to fight against the Reapers? In the DLC you meet Javik, the lone surviving Prothean in a life pod, who tells Shepard that in his cycle, his race dominated the entire galaxy. He was amazed that in this cycle, the races were able to work together. Was that the change that allowed the God Child to force a new alternative? Because everything he said was stupid. In order to save life, you kill it before it kills itself? One would think natural events would balance things. What interest does the Child have in preserving/assimilating organics into Reaper forms anyway? It’s such a slow, brutal and painful process. Anyone would think that an omnipotent power trying to balance things would make a swift and absolute move. Why make robots to plow through things slowly, other than to create despair and chaos? If the minds of countless lives are within Reapers souls and whatnot, why aren’t they fighting back? What convinced them that what they are doing to organics are right, since the time they got harvested?

Even this crappily thought up boss was better than the latest ending.

So Bioware. I don’t care that I didn’t have an ending that reflected all my choices, or the fact that a random God figure was used to solve everything. My beef was with the way the end of the story was presented. Basically it was sloppy, lazy and kind of sucked. If you’re going to make it philosophical, make it so damn good that it blows our minds. Don’t make us scratch our heads and then go “Yeah, use your imagination.” That’s just bullshit.

Everyone wants a DLC to patch up more alternate endings. How much do you want to bet they’ll charge us for it? Money, money…

Overall I loved this trilogy and it still built the best alien universe ever, with its amazing details to each race’s history, personalities, etc. You fall in love with the characters and your crew and so naturally, you’d want to know what happens to them. And the soundtrack? Fucking phenomenal. Mass Effect 3 at least pulled a heart string with the flashback images and somber music. The epic Reaper sound that buzzed when danger came? Chills. Just chills. Beautiful game and story that DESERVES a better ending.

1. I work.
2. Mass Effect 3 is out and I play as a female Commander Shepard that has stayed loyal to my boy toy Kaidan since the first game…

So I’ve got more sexy time important things to do.

Anyway, if I’m MIA for the next week or two, it’s because I’m setting up my computer, on the road, or just getting used to breathing foreign air. Or playing Mass Effect.

Due to my fandom to FPS and RPG games and disappointment in many modern Shounen shows I follow (I should switch to Seinen – the stuff for teenage viewers in Japan… Sadly the western world likes the stuff their 12 year olds watch…), I am thinking of doing more graphics based on Western games. I mean I already have GLEE and Battlestar Galactica stuff – why not?

So Mass Effect, Halo and StarCraft anyone? (Zergs for life!)

You Big Stupid Jellyfish…

If you all would care to know, a life changing turn of events is happening for me. I am moving to Canada and starting a new chapter of life there. Things may be rough for a bit, but I feel confident that I can overcome all this. However to cut expenses, the last thing I would want to do is expire the domain and hosting of this site. You have to realize however, that between Andy and I, we own four domains/websites and that costs money.

So now you know why I place ads on this site and try to increase the traffic to this site via social networks and the likes. Won’t you help by spreading the word to your friends, turning off your ad block on this site, or by donating? If merely 20% of my monthly visitors donated $5, I’d be set for the next two years.

This site has been around the web for 8 years now. I want to keep it running as long as Anime is still in existence and I’m still watching it. If you could help me reach that goal by visiting, donating and spreading the word, I can continue to make free stuff for you guys. It’s a win/win situation, no?

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Why You Not A Doctor?