Hello again! In the video, I explain what my new upload schedule is going to be such that I can have more regular uploads for yinz guys. However, the thing at hand is reviewing Sword Art Online, one of my favorites from this past season. So buckle up and log in as we review the VRMMORPG classic, SAO!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lamperouge98
Tumblr: http://philperior.tumblr.com/
http://youtu.be/SzeD8MmDBGc
Best,
Phil Bohn
Hey everybody! I hope everyone is having a good Christmas season out there in the AAA community. What I’m going to talk about today is the first year of the PS Vita with all the ups and downs (mostly downs), and what the future might hold for the pretty little handheld.
So the Vita launched a year and a day ago as in Japan as I’m writing this, and it had a pretty auspicious start in the lands of the rising sun selling 325,000 units in the first few days, a good launch compared to other systems like the 3DS. However, in the next weeks the sells cratered dropping to as low 12,309 units in the week of February 13th, and being outsold by the PSP. Now the sells have recovered somewhat in the following weeks averaging about 40,000 a week worldwide. This pattern followed with the North American and European launches, initial sales was great and then sinking down to low levels. The black Friday and holiday sales good, but this is likely a temporary bump as with all holiday’s seasons sales always rise dramatically over normal sales figures.
So now let’s look the games released for the system so far. There are currently 158 games as of writing for the Vita. Of these 25 were the launch titles, including Little Deviants, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Rayman Origins, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend etc. The best selling game is Uncharted with 850,000 units sold and will likely also be the first 1 million seller on the system. Not of the other games come close to Uncharted; however three games have about half the sales. Some of the games have been released to critical acclaim such as Persona 4: The Golden which is the highest rated handheld game in 2012 on Metacrtic. Gravity Rush has won handheld game of the year from some publications. So the Vita does have some games to answer that question people like to ask all the time about Sony systems haha. There are a couple games that came out this year that were suppose to turn the fortunes of the Vita around, the so-called “Killer App” that people are always talking about that sells systems, but neither Call of Duty: Declassified or Resistance: Burning Skies became the killer app as both suffered from bad controls and were a little short on content. One of the key selling points people were touting was the ability of Vita to play FPS on the go with the dual analog sticks. Now that two high profile FPS have come out and both have been utter disappointments and in my mind this has damaged the Vita brand.
There is isn’t much to say about what Sony has done to turn around the lackluster sales of the PS Vita because there hasn’t been a permanent price cut, the marketing has largely remain the same, and the Playstation Plus is now on Vita and that should help with sales, how much it will help remained to be seen.
Now I’m going to discuss some things that I think Sony can do to turn Vita around and get it selling good. Here’s the strategy I have conceived that Sony can follow to make sell well and make a profit. They cannot drop the price until the handheld can be redesigned into a form that makes a profit off each unit, otherwise Sony will be losing even more money then they already are on each unit sold. This could take a year or so, but in the end be worth it if they include the features I’m about to list. Include a drive to play all the PSP games; all of the people on the fence about buying a Vita that have a big PSP game library would have a huge reason to buy the system. Add an SD card slot; having only Sony memory cards as the only storage media on Vita has hurt the system even if its not the main reason people often point too. The Vita memory cards are expensive and are an unnecessary extra expense for buyers when they probably have a few SD cards they could be using to store games and data. Extend the battery life of the system; this is probably the easiest one to implement as it has been done many times for other handhelds. The most recent example being the 3DS XL, which added an extra 1.5 hours to the 3DS’s battery life, so it is not that hard. This could also be done through third party batteries such as the ones by Nyko, and that’s what I did with my 3DS and its battery life is actually better than the XL’s. Make games that are an unique experience to the Vita; I think the major problem with Sony’s ideology towards Vita is that they are trying to create scaled down versions of PS3 games for Vita instead of developing games from ground up specifically for Vita. In order to attract people to spent the money on a new hardware you need to have exclusive software that is found no where else. Marketing the Sega Genesis style; it would be extremely funny to watch Sony do some commercials along the lines of the ones done by Sega against Nintendo in the early 1990’s, and seeing how those worked well for Sega it could work for Sony as well.
Well until next time,
Devil_Survivor
Hey erryone. This time, at the behest of Alex Luncford from YouTube, I review Spice and Wolf. Come along as we explore a fanciful medieval-type setting.
http://youtu.be/ZSIkllE3iT8
Best,
Phil Bohn
A review that was requested by Animeboy5671. Thank you, kind sir, for the request. This time, I talk about Rosario+Vampire, a sex-fueled harem comedy. Get psyched. The audio/visual sync problems go away after a while. Sorry about that though. Sadface.
http://youtu.be/iaknWSeqeuY
Best,
Phil Bohn
Recently, I imagine that you been asking yourself a question lately, ” Where the F#%k has Devil Survivor been for the last three months??” Well ladies and gentlemen I moved to South Korea and I’m teaching at a public high school. Its been a good time so far and finally I have time to write something. The topic this time is the second Devil Survivor game which came out in February. I have played through it twice now and I’ll give you a tour.
Background Story
The story in Devil Survivor 2 is a bit different then in the first game as the story this time takes place in different locations around Japan and in the first game you were locked down in Tokyo the whole time trying to escape. Again your a boy in high school, this time a third year high student instead of a second year student, who is coming back from an exam at school with his two friends. When at the subway station, they receive an email on their phones from a website that shows a video clip depicting their deaths in an explosion in the near future. The three students are able to avoid their imminent deaths because of a warning from an avatar from the site and then a train comes crashing and they run for cover. As they wake demons appear and a battle begins, after defeating the demons the students form a contract with the demons and become demon summoners. Soon after the heroes encounter a mysterious government agency known as JP’s that is trying to protect the remaining Japanese cities that haven’t been completely destroyed by the disaster that has struck Japan. They ally with JP’s in order to find out what is behind the disaster that has befallen Japan and find a way to survive.
Gameplay
The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the last game which used a turned based system combat system on a grid of squares. The combat system also featured teams of three, two demons and one of the human characters, and the game allowed you to use up to 4 teams at once. You can carry up to 24 demons in your party at any one time and a great feature of this game is the ability summon a new demon if one of your demons lose all its hit points. Another feature from the first game is ability to create more powerful demons by fusing two less powerful demons. A new twist has been added to this feature called the demon compendium which saves all demons used or created in the fuse application, and for a price you can immediately summon that demon back to your party as long you have a free space. A completely new feature is called the Fate System which is a social relationship system that uses a 0 to 5 scale to rate the bond between the main character and the other characters. The benefit of having a high level bond with another character is that it grants you certain special abilities that can only be used with that character. Again present is the branching story lines like other SMT games, although it seems like there are as many paths as was in the previous game. The demon auction also still in the game, but is less important now with the demon compendium in the game.
Graphics and Cutscenes
The graphics in some ways are not much improved from the original game. The environments looks more detailed and the bosses look quite nice. However, some of the artwork from the first game was reused, but if you haven’t played the first one then you probably won’t notice that. The cut scenes are where the game shines because the first game doesn’t have nearly as many as DS2. The cut scenes all look graphically bright and vibrant. Overall the game is an improvement in most areas in terms of graphics.
Audio and Music
The game’s soundtrack is exceptional, which is a hallmark of any of the SMT games. Each song seems to fit the scene its being played in. The sound effects for the different demon attacks and other actions fit nicely with the overall feel of the game.
Closing Comments
Comparing this game to the original devil survivor it holds its own, while bringing some new gameplay elements to the table. I think Atlus could have put some more effort into making some more new artwork for the character interactions instead of just reusing some of the character models from the first game. Overall, the game is improvement over the first incarnation. One final note, if you haven’t played the first game yet, don’t worry because you can jump right into this game because the two stories have no bearing on each other at and are completely separate stories in effect.
Cheers and Beers,
Devil_Survivor
Well Happy (LAAAAAAAAAAATE) New Years to you guys as I am going to kick off the 2012 year with even more drinking and losing track of time in front of my TV. So, after a few shots of strong whiskey and experiencing another lonely New Years Eve, only to watch Dick Clark “old as dirt” face on the tube, it was time to pop in another random anime tape. By the time I used my last bit of conscious to hit the “Play” button before being overtaken by the devils liquor, I soon found myself in the middle of the desert, with nothing in sight but some old piece of technology that has been rotting on this desolate place for centuries it seems. After investigating the wreckage, behold, a large white mechanical suit popped out from the sand, that looks like it was a defect Metal Gear unit that Kojima didn’t see a purpose to add in his Metal Gear series. The machine spoke to me, saying he has been buried in the sand for something of a thousand years, and waiting for a life form to become his new pilot. He told me his name was Shaian, and opened the cockpit like hatch on his right side of his mech chest unit. “Oh…great, this again…” as I told myself, because I already knew what was going to happen. So, let’s get this booze dream over and done with in this review of Dragon’s Heaven.
I am actually going to do this review a bit different. So, instead of me explaining half the story and saying “hey, screw you and go out there and find it yourself” (like I enjoy doing), I will do a brief review this time to make it easy on you guys, and on myself also. So, let’s dive into this world of robot loving women, 80’s mecha designs, and all around short (and enjoyable) OVA of Dragon’s Heaven.
The OVA starts out with a brief history lesson of a war long forgotten, back in the (or should I say way ahead in the future) year of 3195, where we got robots fighting other robots on the planet Earth (there is a Brazil in this anime, so I will have to use my gut instinct and say Earth). We then hear of the robot back story of Shaian, who cannot return to his home world due to his pilot dying on him in battle and decides to go into robot sleep till whenever. We cut to the current (WAY FUTURE) time and see a rider on some weird looking ostrich animal going through the barren desert, when they go to a wreckage site and see a relic of the past that catches the riders attention. Soon after checking out the wreckage, we see a computer screen appear on screen with the text “Life Form” written, and we see our robot protagonist appear, Shaian. Shaian states that he has been in “robot sleep” for around a millennium when he awakens, and we find out who our mysterious rider is, our human female protagonist Ikaru. From then on, the story takes them into Shaian past and to fight his old robot rival, El Madine.
This is a very short OVA, so your looking at 30 minutes of the actual show, then credits, then about 10 minutes of a documentary at the end. How the actual OVA starts out is there is a 5 minute live action scene at the beginning between animatronic robots that are featured in the anime itself, who look like they are about to throw down right when the anime starts. I have to give the people behind the live action opening some credit, seeing how this was 1988, and if not most of the money went to the animation production than making the animatronic robots, they used what they had to make garage kits of the mechs themselves to try something different. In its own way, it does look really cool. And we get to see the title of the anime that seemed to be made out of a block of steel, rather cool looking. Then ending is just more of a “behind the scenes” look at what they did to make the robots move in the opening, which was recorded at a garage somewhere in Japan. I would have to say the opening sequence and the robots themselves were probably done by the director of this anime, Makoto Kobayashi.
This anime also has its amuzing moments where Shaian is embaressed by Ikaru being nude, and where Ikaru has the hots for Shaian rival when Shaian shows her the picture of the robot. Its like there is this underline theme of “chicks dig robots” in a minor way, for a comical effect that is amusing. The animation and mechanical designs are very unique for its time, which gives this OVA that genuine feel of 80’s nostalgia when you see this. Also to add is Ikaru body armor design when she goes against El Madine with its crazy design of clay looking spike high top boots, spiky knee guards and circular shoulders makes it more unique when it comes to the design work of this anime. There is much more to say when it comes to locations and what not, so keep your eyes peeled. The soundtrack has that 80’s synth pop to it also that kinda stays with you when you watch this.
I would say if you care to check this out, I will be worth your time. Its short, sweet and very too the point. It is available over at Anime Classic Reviews if you care to check it out. Well, I told you this would be shorter, so hope you enjoyed it.
If you enjoyed this, check out my personal blog at Anime of Yesteryear.
Hey triple A community, its me Devil Survivor, the most interesting man on the AAA Network, and I’m finally back with a new blog entry. Today I’m going to shine the anime spotlight on the 1980’s classic mecha show Aura Battler Dunbine. Dunbine was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, who is best known for directing the original Gundam series and a lot of other great anime series. Dunbine was the first fantasy\mecha series which inspired other series such as Escaflowne. It ran for 49 episodes and spawned three OVA sequels; Aura Battler Dunbine: Tale of Neo Byston Well , Tales From Byston Well: Garzey’s Wing, and The Wings of Rean. However, it should be noted that all three are considered to be of inferior quality to the original series. Let’s get into the story.
The setting for the story is in the parallel world of Byston Well which is kind of similar to 16 century Europe, but with one major difference; Aura technology, which allows machines to be built using life force as a power source. Chief among these machines are the Aura Battlers, insect like robots with great destruction power. The story centers around Sho Zama, a Japanese motocross racer who one night is pulled into Byston Well by a magical fairy called a Ferario to serve as pilot of a Aura Battler called the Dunbine. One of the several monarchs in Byston Well, Drake Luft has been maneuvering for sometime to attempt a power play and seize control of the surrounding kingdoms. Part of his plans involve transporting people from Upper Earth, including Sho, because they have strong aura power. Another person brought down to Byston Well to pilot a battler is Todd Guinness , the trash taking, racist, ace pilot from Boston. He becomes the main rival for Sho. Burne Bannings is Drake’s right hand man and the general of his forces,however he does not have must in the way of piloting skill. Sho eventually discovers the evil intent of Drake’s plans and defects to a group led by a noble opposed to Drake, named Nie Givun. Among this group is another person kidnapped from Upper Earth, Marvel Frozen a former cop from Texas. They along with their allies embark on a guerrilla war against Drake and to gather other kingdoms in an alliance to thwart the ambitions of Drake. After a long war in Byston Well, the story shifts to Upper Earth at the mid point of the series. Some people have criticized the series for the slow pacing in the Earth arc, but for me I think the second half of the show moves along fine, albeit with some rough spots.
Overall, Aura Battler Dunbine is a classic piece of mecha anime and one of better works of Yoshiyuki Tomino, which is saying a lot considering all the exceptional shows he has created and directed. I really enjoyed in when I watched it in 2009. So I would recommend it to any fan of mecha or fantasy anime. You can find reviews of each episode on the MAHQ website at this link: http://www.mahq.net/animation/dunbine/abdunbine/dunbinetoc.htm
Until next time, say addicted my friends.
Devil_Survivor
Merry (late) Christmas to all you good little boys and girls out there. It has been a while since I wrote well… anything for the site. But now that I got some time off before school starts again (and jobless once more), I have all the time in the world to waste away at drinking and watching cassette based anime, oh what a joyous waste of time and life that is. So, there I was Christmas Eve, munching on cookies served with spiked egg nog that made my heart glee. As I was getting half wasted, my butt firmly glued to the couch, I heard a large “thud” on the roof that awoke me into a drunken grouch. Getting pissed off from the footsteps up on top of the roof, I reached for my .44 Magnum, hoping to put a silver bullet in this dudes tooth… and his head. With the barrel pointed at my chimney, gun fully cocked, saying to my self “Let’s get ready to Rock!”At the bottom of the chimney, I saw a red and white hat fell, when the next words I heard echoing was “Ah, what the hell!”It was the fat man himself, stuck in the stack, who had a hard time moving, because his butt was a bit fat. And in a flash he landed head first at the bottom, getting himself together where he’d had fallen. I said “Hey Santa, you doing ok Bo’?” As he looked at my TV and said “Hey, whats this show?” I told him I was watching an anime called Madox 01, a show about a dude in a robot suit, reeking havoc in Tokyo for fun. Santa sat his huge butt down on my couch, pouring some Egg Nog and nodding “I gotta check this crap out!” So Santa and me chilled out to some Japanese cartoons, which takes us to our tale of what our adventure came too.
Ok, that is enough rhyming for one paragraph, there is no way I can keep that up for the rest of this review, but I at least tried to do something cool. So yea, Madox 01, to sum up, is a guy who wants to meet his girlfriend at the edge of town while being stuck inside a military mechanical suit. Cool premise isn’t it? And to be honest, this OVA isn’t that bad. It’s down right entertaining to see, from the easy to follow plot to the action scenes involving our protagonist trying to avoid the military from getting in between him and his girlfriend since he has their property that he just can’t seem to get out of. Well, that right there is the “easy plot,” dead serious. But if this tickles your fancy, I’ll give you my brief lowdown of what happens. So, let me and Santa cram in our robot suits while going down Tokyo in this review of Madox 01.
Madox 01 starts out with some cool looking animation with wire frames of robot legs, machine guns and rocking synth 80’s OVA music. We then go to an abandoned backwater town, filled with nothing but dirt, sand and isolation. But before you know it, 3 tanks are coming into the town and split up upon entering. Within a couple of minutes, a lone military mech suit takes out each tank one by one with set traps while demonstrating its raw firepower of its arsenal of machine guns and missiles. Once the last tank goes down, we see it was nothing short but a computerized simulation. We then hear the disappointed growl of one Lt. Kilgore, the tank commander who was completely humiliated by the military mech and, none the less, the woman piloting the machine, Ellie Kusumoto. Kilgore later approaches Ellie to not only give her his personal congratulations, but states ,in a since that in real combat, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and walks off.
Later that evening, we see the military transport truck driving along the Tokyo highway when a drunk driver in front of the transport losses control and crashes, which causes the cargo on the transport to somehow fly off the highway and land in a transport truck down below, which belongs to a mechanic on his dinner break. We then cut to our main protagonist Kouji, who likes to spend his days working part time at a mechanic shop fixing cars and staring at military planes that fly over, when we get introduced to his boss (or co-worker I guess) by the name of Onose. Ono gets Kouji to check something out in the bed of his truck, which turns out to be the cargo of what the military transport truck was carrying last night. So, they both get the great idea and take it over to Kouji apartment to figure out what it is.
While that is going on, we go back to the military base to get an idea of how everyone in the military is handling this, which is not very well as you could imagine. Ellie is wanting to retrieve her robot mech, but not if Kilgore has anything to say about it, since he is in charge of finding and bringing back the robot in one piece, presumably. While the military is in a fit, Kouji and Ono load the the cargo into the house, where Kou looks at the instructions on the side, and the label listed on the box, that read “Madox.” Ono sees a picture of Kou girlfriend, Shiori, and begins stating that she will be leaving for England for school and that she left a message for Kou to see her at the NSR building 8pm that evening. Ono decides to head back to the shop while Kou begins to fiddle with the box. After unhooking a few giant screws and pressing some buttons he obviously should not be pressing, lo’ and behold, the box transforms into our robot, Madox. I am pretty sure you guys saw this a mile away, I did say paper thin plot now did I? Kou decides to hop into the mech to satisfy his curiosity, which he finds out the mech has locked him inside, kinda like walking into a lions mouth, only it has pretty lights to look at, and its a robot really not a lion.
But chaos ensues, as the go go gadget robot begins to activate and starts to jets through a bath house and some residential blocks of the city, giving a debris ensued path right to the culprit, in case you wanted to know why there is a hole in your crummy apartment all of the sudden. Kou and his robot land in a convenience store, which Kou only save to get him out of trouble is to buy microwavable shrimp. I am not kidding, he buys vacuum sealed shrimp and rice and that’s it. No cops, no angry mob, no consequences for what just happened to him, as he tries to enjoy some shrimp while in his robot suit sitting on a bench in the park while he considers seeing his girlfriend at the NSR building by 8pm. Oh trust me, it gets even better from here folks. Back at the base, we find that Kilgore is going all out to get the Madox, as his intent is to destroy the machine than to capture it. Ellie confronts him, but he let’s the tank cannon of his gun get his point across, as he he points it at her point blank in her face as his way of saying “Piss off, this is my show now!” Ellie decides to take matters into her own hands and suits up to go into a prototype Madox unit to get ahead of Kilgore and capture the unit herself before any damage can be done to the city.
We then get back to Kou who stops at a gas station to fill his robot suit up with diesel fuel, asking the attendant for assistance. Of course, other than a hand full of on lookers, he gets help in fueling up his robot suit and is off to the NSR building. Of course on the way there, a bunch of no good punks want to drag race with Kou and his robot (oh dear god, this is just gold) which ends with Kou using the chainsaw blade feature of the machine to chop the car roof of the punks car. But not before the military stops in to use there way of putting and end to Kou, by shooting at everything around him while trying to shoot him. With the military hot on Kouji’s butt and with Shiori headed to the NSR building, can Kouji get his chance with Shiori before she leaves for good? Can he get past Lt. Kilgore and Ellie as well? Your just gonna have to see that for yourself now.
I will admit, this show has its dumb moments when you put into context of what is really going on, but it is highly entertaining in its own right. This is a Shinji Aramaki anime, so you can either love or hate his directorial pieces, coming from someone who is a master mechanical designer. The character designs are more or less alright really. Its like I want to like Ellie character design and I do at some points, then at others it just seems a bit off depending on the close up or the angle. This was also the first release title (or license actually) from AnimEigo back in the early 1990’s, sometime before they got Bubblegum Crisis. And also to note, there has never been a dub track for this anime, since all the releases have been sub only, including both for VHS and DVD.
But yea, all in all, I do like Madox quite a bit. It’s not to be taken serous by any means, its just a nice little fun show to sit down and relax too for about an hour. But yea, hopefully I should have some more reviews ready since I am out of school till the next semester starts in mid January, so I should have ZERO excuses to write more things by then, which I should… which I better do anyways. Well until next time, Happy New Year!!!!!!!
If you enjoyed this review, check me out at Anime of Yesteryear!!
I have had a 3DS for roughly 2 weeks, and so far I have not been very disappointed, I figured I would let others know exactly how I felt about the system. First of all, I have found the 3D effect, and almost everything about it, to be completely useless. It took me half a week to even find exactly how to hold it for the 3D to work, and when it IS being held correctly, I must say the 3D does look pretty amazing, but it is almost impossible to use while actually playing. I end up tilting the 3DS a lot while playing, not to mention holding it out a bit makes it slightly harder to see easily and tired my arms out pretty quickly. So while not to say that the 3D isn’t good, it’s just completely impractical, even more so then wearing 3D glasses, at least to me. The graphics are definitely not bad, I’d say they are on par with the Wii’s, but they are not spectacular either, I would say the PSP’s graphics are equal, if not greater, and the PSV’s will be far better.
The battery life doesn’t seem too bad, if you are using it in sleep mode while listening to music or something, it seems like it can go hours before it even loses 25% of its battery life, while for when you are actually playing games I can’t really tell how long it would last, but I have had no problems with the battery so far.
It seems extremely easy to use and understand, although something that’s a little out of the way but rather important is the update button, it wasn’t until I explored the 3DS for a whole day that I discovered the update option hidden in the system settings, and after an update that took about an hour or so to finish, I had access to an internet browser (that I think sucks, compared to say the PSP’s anyway) and an online store. I explored the store for a bit, downloaded some free things, including a 3D pokedex, a Zelda game, and Netflix. The Netflix worked extremely well, although it seemed to have a couple of server issues at first, I was able to easily get in and watch some Inyuasha, there also appears to be no problems with closing the 3DS in the middle of a video and coming back later, although I can’t say if the same is true if you end up leaving your house with your 3DS. All in all, the thing is pretty simple.
The 3DS also has 2 cameras, I believe the camera on the back of the 3DS is capable of taking 3D pictures, and the front camera only can take normal ones. The pictures are not very high quality at all, and usually quite blurry. I couldn’t really notice too much 3D in the pictures I took, but you can edit them with stickers, as well as drawing on them and stuff. The 3DS comes with “AR Cards”, which include a mystery box card (by far the most important), as well as a small variety of popular Nintendo character cards, including Mario, Link, Samus, Kirby, and Pikmin, which turn into characters that you can put in a small amount of different poses, as well as move around, and make small, medium, or large, and you can take pictures of these characters in the area you put them.
The games out for it at the time aren’t very good from what I have seen and read, I only have one at the moment, which is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I had never played the game before, and I must say I am enjoying it a lot, but I can’t say much about how different it is then the previous ports of the game, although from what I have heard the graphics have been slightly updated and any part of the game involving first person can be controlled using the 3DS’s built in gyroscope. There are very few good games released thus-far, it seems like the best at the moment are Mario games, Zelda, Dead or Alive, and Street Fighter. Also, using the mystery box AR card that comes with the 3DS, you can play a small hand full of games, including archery, fishing, and some sort of small golf/bowling type game. You can also unlock a few more levels for these games using 3DS coins, which are obtained by *dun dun dunnn*, WALKING! Yes, you must actually close your 3DS, and walk 100 steps to obtain a coin, with a maximum of 10 coins per day. Or, if you are lazy, like me, you can sit down and move your arm up and down for a few minutes to get a couple of coins, which is still exercise when you think about it. The things in the AR shop aren’t very pricey, and there’s not much to buy anyway, but you could probably purchase all of it with about 15 coins or less. There is also a game built into the 3DS where you take picture’s of your, and other people’s faces and aim the camera around to shoot them, it is a bit more fun then it sounds, but becomes quite boring after about 20 or 30 minutes, and you could probably even beat it in that time too. You can actually take pictures while you are playing, it seems like the 3DS was made to take crazy pictures actually.
The friend system is also improved from the DS, as the 3DS itself has a friend code that lets you register friends online, instead of every individual game having its own friend code. I might give more updates as I learn more things about the handheld, and as I get a few more games for it, but for now, I leave you with this.
Episode Reviewed In: Episode 110
Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: July 2002
Episode Length/Run-time: 26 Episodes
Summary:
The story follows Robin Sena who is a “craft user” not to be mistaken with a witch. Craft users are raised by the Roman Cathloic Church to use their powers to hunt down witches. Witchcraft is a dormant trait which lies in human “seeds” when they awaken it drives a person, generally, to madness. Robin works for the STN-J a group which looks over seeds and hunts witches but through her work with them she begins to learn more about the witches she hunts and what her group really does.
Review:
I suppose I’ll start out by saying that Witch Hunter Robin is not an exceptional anime. It’s far from bad, and it’s downright entertaining most of the time, but it is hardly something which will merit acclaim, praise, or a second watch anytime soon. However, I am a huge fan of the occult and witchcraft so this series is right up my alley and tickles my supernatural bone.
The series falls under the old routine of monster of the week for about the first half. In my opinion you can watch episodes 1 and 2, then skip 3-11 and pick the series back up there. Some of the episodes are interesting and the DO progressively let you in on secrets of the STN-J group but it is filler, no ifs-ands-or-butts on the matter. The plot doesn’t really take off until the halfway mark, where they then take the non-existent buildup and your now over-familiarity with the characters to progress what is the real plot. Being a fan of the occult I didn’t hate the filler, and some of it was amusing, but filler is filler, they likely could’ve condensed it down a fair bit.
When the series does pick up, it really picks up and the plot moves quick. Not break-neck speed that makes you go “wooooah hold up!” but a good place that is enjoyable. The show is never riddled with action but has the pacing of a good mystery novel and uncovers things at a decent pace that makes it worth watching.
The atmosphere of the show and animation style are just fantastic, and really carries it along. I’ve heard it described as “neo-goth” and I can see how it fits really well. The show almost has such a good atmosphere it feels like TV shows like Charmed (without the silly fluff of Charmed) here in America.
The characters also make the show worth watching, from traditional clichés to people facing deep moral dilemmas. And the music is pretty solid too, I rocked out on my iPod for a while to it.
Overall, I may be a little biased because I liked this show so much because of the themes it used and the questions it asked. But I really enjoyed it.