Now is a most excellent time to start playing Billy Versus Snakeman as Star Turtle Village needs Ninjas. With its huge number of options it is ideal for a beginning player and has all sorts of bonuses and perks for established players as well.
For established players or new players that just want to be at a village from the very beginning, then Fractale Village is the place for you! Established and ruled by the benevolent Pixy Misa, Fractale is a quiet, serene village hidden deep in the heart of math.
...Oh and all the nonjas are cute girls (well, except for Archie).
Just click on this banner if you want to learn math ninjutsu...
Billy Versus Snakeman is a simple browser based MMOG in which is set in a universe composed of offbeat parodies of anime shows. You start as a lowly genin, dreaming of ninja awesomenes. However, as you rise up
the ninja ranks, you gain new goals that take you on bizarre adventures, involving, wasteland scavenging, soul reaping, monster fighting. hanafuda, majong and darts as well as exciting careers in the fast food industry. It has a limit on how much you play a day ( you have a very limited amount of stamina) so you are only on about 15 minutes a day. Thus there is no danger of one getting eaten by the game and becoming one of those online gamer after-school specials..unless one were to play multiple characters.
From one of the more uninspiring series concepts in an uninspiring season comes...a surprise!
Its the year 2022, and a new MMORPG is coming online. This one has the latest in interface technology. namely a VR headset that operates through direct neural stimulation. The game is from a well regarded developer and highly anticipated. Our hero, who goes by the online handle of Kirito was one of the games Beta Testers. He logs on and mucks about for a bit, gives pointers to a new player and then tries to help the new player log out...but he can't.
There is no log-out option.
Enter the godlike online Avatar of the games developer who informs the 10,000 odd players that this is by design, and that he is informing the world of his deed. Oh....and if they die in-game their interface helmets will fry their brains. If anyone tries to unhook them, the helmets fail safe will kill them (which happens immediately to over 200 players as frantic loved ones watching his broadcast fail to heed his warning).
Now about 9800 people are stuck in a virtual Tolkienesque world. before he logs himself out, the madman leaves them with one tenuous hope...his assurance that they can escape if they clear all 100 levels.
***********
OK let's say right up front that the premise of this show does not inspire confidence.
Sword Art Online greatly exceeded my expectations however, and at 11 episodes in, I'm going to recommend it.
This show has exceptional character development, not only of the male lead but also of Asuna, the heroine, who is smart, tough and genuinely heroic. Although she's not present for a good portion of the show she is surprisingly well realized and has grown noticeably as a person during the course of the series. Asuna is one of the best female action leads in years.
Kirito, the male lead, is the main focus of the story early on and develops noticeably in the first few episodes. He is run through the ringer, but Kirito, while far from perfect learns from his mistakes and does evolve as a person. His development is actually quite believable. Kirito is also smart which is always a pleasant surprise in these shows.
The show can be grim. The premise means that there will be a body count, but it is not gory and there is an optimism that runs through the whole thing. The show touches on things like ostracization, survivors guilt, ethics, love, the definition of happiness, and the difference between bravado and courage far better than one has any business to expect from a cartoon...let alone one about being stuck in a video game.
I am astonished to be so thoroughly enjoying this show. I just hope that they don't completely bollox it toward the end, as is the fate of so many initially good shows.
However, with much of the staff of Moretsu Pirates involved, I'm allowing myself a bit of optimism here.
1
I've held that the strength of this story is not in a concept that we've
seen before, but in the psychology of the players. From the fate of
the Black Cats, to murder mystery, to the relationship between Asuna and
Kirito -- the characters are the strength of the story.
With the latest episode, they've gone into uncharted waters with an
anime original plot. I'd expected this much earlier, but they raced
through the two years to get Asuna back into the story, I guess.
Posted by: ubu at Tue Sep 18 16:43:54 2012 (e9h6K)
2
Thanks for the recommendation - I'll try to make time to watch it..
As I recall, Hack//Sign also had a player who could not log-out of the game world (just one), but the story never really went anywhere, at least not in the anime...
Posted by: Siergen at Tue Sep 18 19:19:46 2012 (Bv5ty)
3
I didn't think this latest one was anime-original; people on a number of forums were waiting for her to show up. Or did they make significant changes to her story?
4
I'm judiciously avoiding spoilerses...of course it seems that there are only 2 eps left which I find worrisome from a plot/pacing standpoint.
@ Seirgen: Yes. The "stuck in a video game" plot has been a very reliable indicator of fail. On the other hand this show doesn't have the sumptuous art direction and Yuki Kaijiura score...but it tells engaging stories and has characters I give a damn about...so advantage SAO.
@ No One in Particular
I liked how they had Sachi in the opening credits all the way through...which really led me to not expect what happened . I fully expected her to make it.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Sep 18 19:57:40 2012 (e9h6K)
5
It's not a 13-episode series. AT-X has episode 17 airing on 10/30 on their calendar, and ANN thinks it will be 25.
(and if that length has you worried about the pacing, well, I've read a few spoilers that make it sound reasonable)
Hack//Sign ended where the first game began. It was a prequel to the game. That's why nothing important was resolved.
This sounds strange coming from someone who is a big fan of Strike Witches, I know, but I just can't get past the stupidity of the concept for this series. I can't take it seriously. For one thing, I'm having a hard time believing that people in the outside world haven't figured out how to get people out of the game safely in two years of elapsed time. Don't they have access to the servers? Access to all the design notes? Access to the whole development team? Even if the lead guy is keeping his mouth shut, a project like this has to have included dozens or hundreds of other engineers and I don't buy that all of them are so dedicated to this plot that none of them are willing to cooperate with authorities on trying to shut it down.
8
By the way, any engineer who refuses to cooperate can be prosecuted for capital murder. That threat isn't going to shake anyone loose? I don't believe it.
9
Steven, how about a disgruntled programmer embedding hidden code just before the final compile, then deleting his source code before going into hiding and/or faking his own death? Or an external group hitting the game severs with a subtle virus that attacks a flaw in the low-level hardware?
Also, if any of the trapped players are relatives of powerful politicians, you can bet that any attempts to interfere with the game servers will be met with tons of government oversight, legislative committee meetings, and associated red tape.
If those arguments don't sway you, suppose the game is hosted on the same "cloud" as the software which is used to design next-generation strike witch boots? Surely we can't risk any action that might imperil the war effort...
Posted by: Siergen at Tue Sep 18 21:56:12 2012 (Bv5ty)
Siergen, you obviously haven't been involved in any major software development efforts lately.
All large development projects use source control systems. That means that when you want to make a change, you have to check out the source module, make your alteration, and then check it back in. There's an audit trail, and every change is tracked. Furthermore, the source control system permits the development group to retreat to any point during the entire development process if need be.
RCS is ancient at this point but it's an example of such things. Modern source control systems are far more elaborate and capable.
In other words, it isn't possible for someone to "sneak in a change" and then sneak it back out again with no way for anyone else to know it happened.
11
The premise is quite dumb. More to the point, how does the device determine you've lost your connection to the server? How does it distinguish that from lag? Two seconds is plenty long to cut a couple cables, but it's -nothing- in lag terms.
I think it also suffers from rushing things a little. We go straight from "here is Kirito and a handful of other beta testers, and the great unwashed of regular players in mostly starting gear" to "here is Kirito the loner, and also several hostile self-organized guilds". Exactly how you go from A to B would have been pretty interesting; instead we get convenient comic-book-cutout villains when the plot calls for them (and they even look like ugly villains, despite the conceit that everyone is playing characters that look like themselves.)
Even saying all that, though, it still turned out pretty well. Kirito's got his stuff together, generally speaking - he'd make a good harem lead (by Steven's criteria) if it was that kind of show. It's not a great show - there's still some highly-selective stupidity when it's convenient for the plot - but it'll do, it'll do.
If I were going to write this plot (and I'm not expecting it to come out like this!), I'd set it up such that the fry-your-brain thing wasn't correct, and that casualties don't actually die, but that players are told that to keep them engaged (and families compensated handsomely to keep them agreeable). The big question is "why", but I don't want to place a guess that's too close to what might be actually happening in the show...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Sep 18 22:02:47 2012 (pWQz4)
13
I work on software development for the US Navy. In theory, we have strict code reviews, source/version controls, nightly backups, disaster recovery plans, etc. And one of these years, we may actually attempt to put that theory into practice...
Posted by: Siergen at Tue Sep 18 22:16:28 2012 (Bv5ty)
14
I heartily grant you that the premise is dubious. However, there are a couple of reasons that the government might not be able to get the people out.
1: Perhaps he pulled an Ozymandias and killed his whole development team. (The man is a psychopath after all). design notes and such might have been purged...obviously he had 2 sets anyway, one without the crazy for government and public consumption.
2: the fact that the first run of helmets sell out after only 10,000 copies and sell out in less than a day. Presumably the full run would have been in the millions, yet this special first edition was limited to 10,000. Why? Hype officially but a short run with no shelf time might give him a better opportunity to add nasties and booby-traps undetected by the Japanese equivalent of UL...who had presumably checked the prototypes and any safe helmets he provided them. This is 2022 so the manufacturing process may well be 3-D printing meaning that
A: he could have surreptitiously installed his own modifications.
B: The helmets are unitary designs even less tinker friendly than my iMac.
3: 200 or so people died when relatives tried to pull them out. It is likely that more died later when the government did. If the helmets are booby trapped (and they are explicitly stated to have backup battery supplies in the helmet )ANY tampering will set it off. Given that the remaining people are physically OK a risk adverse administration might just put everyone in a hospital with IV feed and try to negotiate with the terrorist.
4: Hacking the system might involve similar risks..if the system crashes or tampering is detected everyone will likely be fried.
5: Finally, there might be a social stigma against gaming otaku sufficient to inhibit efforts. After all these 'losers' got them selves into this. This is unlikely but possible.
So it doesn't beggar belief that the people could be trapped.
The same cannot be said for an interface so amazing that ones cooking skill is important because the food you eat in game to keep your stats gives the same sensations as eating.... ...but out of respect to the catgirls I'll speak no more of that.
This show not hard Sci-Fi, it's fantasy and it's about relationships and charachter development rather than Verneian extrapolation.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Sep 18 23:00:18 2012 (e9h6K)
15
If I were involved, I would have gone techno-magic and said a wizard did it.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Wed Sep 19 09:24:09 2012 (jwKxK)
16
One of my coworkers has been specializing in software forensics. She's seen a case where it was claimed that a developer had injected malware into the product before being terminated. All the review mechanisms Steven talked about were performed, and nothing was found. It was eventually discovered (after LOTS of headscratching) that they were using open source version control and build systems, and the rogue developer had simply compiled his own rogue versions of those tools and put them into the development environments, giving him the ability to inject code that didn't appear in the source files anywhere. Clever, hard to detect, and once detected, you still don't have the source available for analysis.
Posted by: David at Wed Sep 19 12:43:40 2012 (+yn5x)
Oh So THAT'S How It's Done
I noted this in passing the other day on YouTube and I wondered..."How?"
The second opening credits song to Nichijou simply does not seem to lend itself to a trance version in any way shape or form.
Bakemonogatari EP 1
Crunchyroll has now started streaming Bakemonogatari in a possibly futile attempt to have its sequel (Nisemonogatari) make sense.
I'd heard generally good things about this series so I'm giving it a shot. I must say I was unprepared for the sheer SHAFTacular SHAFTieness of this SHAFT production.
How SHAFTy is it?
This is the staircase at the school.... This is a hallway in the same school... Yes, SHAFT tends to be aggressively surrealist in its art direction and this show rather maxes that out. It's quirky look accentuates the otherworldly feel of the story. The use of "lighting" is particularly effective.
Despite its striking visuals this is not a show that relies on imagery
to tell a tale. It is VERY dialog heavy...and text heavy...with episode
one having several flashes of 'textposition' that are onscreen for such a
short period of time that they frequently defy even the pause button.
Despite this one annoyance and opening with one of the most gratuitous
panty-shots I have ever seen this is a pretty intelligent and intriguing
show.
Our hero, Kyomi Araragi... ...is a senior at the academically challenging and architecturally improbable Naoetsu High School. He's your typical high school senior with the minor exceptions that he's smart and organized enough to be vice president of the student council and he's a former vampire, having spent much of his junior/senior vacation as a blood sucking creature of the night. He's better now, but struggles with lingering eosophobia which frequently makes getting to first period on time a challenge.
His closest thing to a friend in school is...
Tsubasa Hyakawa, the student council president. She she is helpful, smart, adventurous in her choice of undergarments, frighteningly well organized, an exceptional student and quite down to earth. Araragi has immense respect for her. She shares homeroom with... Hitagi Senjogahara, who our hero recently saved by catching her when she fell down the schools spectacular stairshaft....a kindness for which she is less than grateful.
Hitagi is never without adequate school supplies despite never carrying a bookbag or purse and indeed is a very good student notwithstanding a lingering illness that has caused her to miss much school. Hitagi is a bit underweight and is not particularly sociable. In fact she's a very private person to the point that one might consider her a bit crabby. Despite this, our hero attempts to befriend her which sets in motion a series of bizarre and painful events.
This is an odd show, but it is a clever and even thoughtful supernatural adventure and thus far I'm really liking it.
1She's a very private person to the point that one might consider her a bit crabby.
I see what you did there.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Sep 16 21:05:12 2012 (yqnY1)
2
Her lack of sociability is a staple of her life.
Posted by: ubu at Sun Sep 16 23:56:01 2012 (GfCSm)
3
Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention. Araragi is the class VP, not the overall council VP. And he's actually a bit lazy and has poor grades. Tsubasa-chan roped him into his position and has been tutoring him.
And yes, it's very dialog heavy; in fact that is the overwhelming strength of the show, even more than the art.
Posted by: ubu at Sun Sep 16 23:59:35 2012 (GfCSm)
4
I actually downloaded the series a while ago, but I haven't gotten around to watching it. I mostly did that to check out a scene from later in the series that someone told me about. The show seems to have more title cards than a silent movie.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Sep 18 02:23:14 2012 (cZPoz)
5
Yeah. It's unfortunate that it's Aniplex handling the distribution because this is one of those rare shows that actually needs a dub.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Sep 18 02:51:50 2012 (e9h6K)
MGFX : What's Missing?
I discussed Mysterious Girlfriend X a couple of times when I started it. Now that its done I must say it's pretty good.
It's quirky and odd, but it's kind of touching in a socially maladjusted way.
However, I noticed something else as it progressed.
No cellphones.
Also, the camera. It's a camera...not a cellphone ap and seems to use film. Furthermore, Urabe doesn't seem worried about infinite digital copies.
So the show is set in the past.
Is it really a period piece?
If so when is it set and what are the little period trappings that I'm missing?
The "UFO" that Urabe uses on her pencil was seen a lot in the '80s (on Urusei Yatsura for instance) but that might not count.
1
I remember reading that it is, in fact, set in the '80s, but I don't recall if that was supposition or Word Of God.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Sep 1 21:33:51 2012 (QsGp9)
2
I made the same observation. I was trying to date it based on some of the posters, but it was inconclusive.
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Sep 1 23:44:51 2012 (cZPoz)
3
It's the same setup as, for example, Kamichu. Setting up in 1980s became popular as Japanese look back at the time of economic growth with nostalgic eyes.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Sep 4 22:25:42 2012 (RqRa5)
4
Another reason for putting Kamichu about 1980 was so that Gen-san could be a veteran of the war and not be old as dust.
"I Try To Go Straight...But They Keep Dragging Me Back In"
So I'm looking for shrines and such and places that are of historical interest. JNTO, The Japanese National Tourism Organization, has a category for "Sacred Places"
This is the categories icon on their website...
Oy...
UPDATE: Actually, she's not a bad choice for that category's mascot all things considered.
But I still laughed.
Oh What the HELL is This?
I've just restarted Mysterious Girfriend X, and am now on episode 4.
Oh my.
This quirkfest is getting...creepy.
It's also damned interesting.
Oh crap...you caught my stigmata.
(No...really)
UPDATE:
"Girl talk" had always been a mystery to me.
Now it just disturbs me.
1
I noted in particular that Urabe took the red pill in 04. She is very secure.
Still, Oka is like a bulldog: never unclasps her jaws if she snaps on some idea. Urabe is going to have to do her utmost to keep Oka in check.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sat Jul 28 22:05:59 2012 (5OBKC)
2
By the way, with the transmission of the stigmata established, what do you think happens to Tsubaki when Urabe hits her period? Canonically they weren't missing a day except when she was away.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sat Jul 28 22:09:59 2012 (5OBKC)
I did not expect a cross -over. Ending
both the El Santo and Batman franchises was interesting, but seeing
El Santo be so bitter and twisted in his old age was heartbreaking.
Still, the team-up between Batman and Blue Demon at the end and the epic battle with them saving the orphanage
full of Hispanic kids was a nice touch. It was inspiring to see Blue Demon taking up (and redeeming) El
Santo's sullied torch.
That last paragraph may not be entirely accurate, but it has the virtue of being spoiler free.
Well, I Didn't Expect THAT Instrument to Figure so Prominently
...in a rave tune.
As for the A part of the AMV, I'd seen .gifs from this bit of animation around for years and was curious as to what it was from. I'd initially thought it was an ad or some such, but as this makes clear it's from something called Yogurting.
Wait...Yogurting? Well, with a name like that I was kinda hoping for a show from the burgeoning fermentation genre...like Moyashimon. Alas, it's a Korean MMORPG set in a high school with a mystery emphasis and apparently no lactobaccillus at all.
So the video source is a bust as far as any interest for me. But damn! Points for the 'pipes..
Three other shows had piqued my interest, two of which I've finished.
Haiyore! Nyaruko-sanwas mentioned here before. For most of its run this Magical Girlfiend/ Lovecraft comedy was worth at least a couple of laughs an episode, though only to a very narrow segment of humanity that has read Lovecraft, still watches anime and who are sufficiently un-sociaized to get gags like this...
Despite its scattershot nature, the show built on each silly development and was fairly consistent with its admittedly stupid internal logic. I must admit though, that it did grate at times.
Towards the end there was considerable buildup to a story that was going to be set in the Dreamlands. This looked looked to be quite promising. Unfortunately, the last few episodes seem to have been replaced with a stock harem comedy ending that came out of nowhere, derailed the plot and was sappy, cliched, boring and pointless. I'm not sure what was going on there. The ending really feels like it belongs to some other show.
Aside from the unfunny ending, I found it to be enjoyable fluff, but this show is definitely an acquired taste...
********
The original Queens Blade series, was refreshingly devoid of any pretensions of respectability. Set in a fantasy kingdom where the empress is chosen not by heredity but by the perfectly reasonable method of a gladiatorial catfight tournament, it did not take itself at all seriously, tempering its over the top cheesecake with a couple of interesting side characters. It was not a good show by any means but I watched it at a friends house a year or so ago and it was something of a guilty pleasure.
This seasons installment, Queens Blade Rebellion combines vulgarity, pretentiousness, a nonsensical plot, lots of lolis, faux futanari follies, several unlikeable characters and a side order of sadism to produce one of the most execrable shows I have ever had the poor judgement to sit through. This is just dreadful. I cannot do justice in mere words to how wretched this show is and I refuse to go back and wade through that cesspit to grab frames to put behind a NSFW tag, so you'll have to take my word for it. It stinks on ice.
*********
Mysterious Girlfriend Xis interesting but I've only seen 3 eps so far. I hope to catch up over the next week. If I'd watched this instead of that Queens Blade abomination I'd be current with the show and likely be a much happier person.
1
I really enjoyed Mysterious Girlfriend X, as you can guess by the excessively long, spoiler-filled reviews I posted on my blog.
I ended up watching both the HorribleSubs and SubDesu translations, because each one picked up different subtleties in the script.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Jul 12 03:35:11 2012 (cZPoz)
2
Yeah, Nyaruko started off strong and goofy, but I was already losing interest when the loli showed up, and only finished it because of my lingering affection for Kuuko.
Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is an uneven film that alternates between the best and worst Hollywood has to
offer. Blessed with superb production values and some very interesting
concepts, the film suffers from a lack of focus, a lack of believability, and
most unfortunately for a horror film, a lack of actual suspense.
The film follows a pair of archeologists
who have become convinced that life on Earth was seeded by aliens. They
convince the CEO of an exceedingly wealthy conglomerate to finance an
expedition to a distant star they believe is the home of the aliens who
engineered life on earth. They find out that they might be right, but in the
process discover unspeakable ancient horrors.
Ridley Scott’s films tend to be visually
striking and this one is no exception. The shipboard sets are futuristic in the
extreme, yet they appear quite functional. The lighting and subdued color in
certain exterior shots give a genuinely unearthly feel to the alien world. The
set designs of alien passageways achieve a particularly interesting effect,
giving at once impressions of the grandeur and massive scale of the structure
while also conveying a sense of profound claustrophobia. When alien life is
encountered, it does indeed look quite alien except in once case where the
familiarity in appearance is the point.Even handheld tools loot futuristic but practical. A combination
computer notepad/ flashlight/ sample collection kit is particularly well designed.
The spacesuits are based on some of the latest work by NASA and MIT. Yet they
have subtle touches that harkens back to ‘50s sci-fi in a brilliant blending of
retro and futuristic design elements. On the other handthe flamethrowers look really toy-like
and also lead to a believability question: "Why are they bringing
FLAMETHROWERS of all things?â€
That failure to suspend the audience’s disbelief is one of the major
problems of the film, the flamethrowers being the least egregious example. A
few others include:
A woman, who
gives herself a cesarean and spends the rest of the film doing action
heroine physical antics.
A group of scientists on an alien world who just take
off their helmets when they discover the atmosphere is breathable (alien germs
be damned).
The film is billed as a horror movie. However, there is little in the
way of actual suspense. Two scientists behaving quite stupidly, die horribly
and very predictably. There is betrayal aboard the ship which the audience most
likely saw coming a mile away. The scares all have a very perfunctory feeling
to them and the only real surprise is the shocking and quite disturbing visual
of the aforementioned cesarean operation.
This bloody endeavor removes not a
child, but a quite hideous and very active tentacle monster. This is no doubt supposed to be the jaw
dropping moment of the film much like the famous chest-burster scene in Alien. It is quite graphic, but
in the theater, the audience was giggling at that point.
The movie is not a direct prequel to Alien, but it does establish what is going on in that universe. It also has some interesting concepts but they are only slightly explored.
Michael
Fassbender plays David, a rather sinister android and he does a superb job of
conveying his nonhuman perspective. It's implied that he has developed a rigid code of ethics...just not human ones. He seems to have aspirations as well. This is
something the rest of the characters tend to miss and it is a neat transhumanist twist.
Fassbender gives a deadpan performance with subtle tics that convey a palpable sense of
frustration and yearning without expressing any actual emotion. However, this is never explored to any depth.
There is a
fatalistic andyet inspiring
message about heroism. One plot point revolves around a character sacrificing
himself in such a way no one will ever know that he saved all of humanity. The
main plot with its Lovecraftian overtones has tremendous potential as well, but
this is never fully realized.
Instead the film wastes all its good effects, visuals and quirky ideas
on a disjointed story that has a decidedly paint by numbers feel to it. The
films excuse for suspense is a collection of haunted house and slasher film
tropes.
Prometheus is an intriguing, gorgeous
but ultimately quite disappointing film. I had high hopes for it but they were largely unfulfilled.
Bodacious Space Pirates: The End
Well, an awesome space battle, a spectacular boarding action and a bit of exposition wrapped up one of the most enjoyable and interesting series that I've seen in a long time.
No she doesn't normally wear the dorky pirate hat on EVAs, but she's being intentionally flashy here to send an important message. "We kicked your ass wearing our Sunday best, and we did so with panache. You have completely lost. "
Most surprising of all, the show pulled of a thoroughly satisfying
climax and wrap-up while leaving it open ended enough for a sequel.
Also, I must say that I did not see THIS coming:
I demand a spinoff!
Did she....STEAL it.?...Did she BUY it? Has she got a letter of Marque? If so from whom?
A note regards speculation as to what she thought she might have been able to do had she arrived in time:
The Odette 2 was revealed to have an impressive EW suite in the early episodes. Given that the battle plan relied on Electronic Warfare, she might have been useful as an addition.
UPDATE: Also, from the comments at Chizumatic, it might have been intended that the Odette 2 act as an unarmed neutral to pick up any survivors if things went badly.
This show will leave a considerable gap.
I will definitely be picking up the DVDs. (SENTAI is indeed bringing it over, and has actually put out for a dub by Bang Zoom. which is one of the best outfits in the industry.)
1
Yes, that was a pleasant surprise. I think the
yacht club was hoping to get there before the action started to cheerlead and observe from a safe distance. Lynn wouldn't have let them become a valid target by openly participating in the EW, although she might have covertly pitched in herself. And, yes, I'd happily watch the adventures of Captain Jenny and her first mate.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Jul 1 17:48:08 2012 (2XtN5)
1
I wonder if there's enough time left to wrap up all the dangling plot lines: What is her mom doing now? Who tried to kill/kidnap Marika in the first episode? Who is backing the pirate hunting ship? Who is Iron Beard? What really happened to her father? What are Kane and Misa hiding? Will Marika and Chiaki ever show their true feelings for each other? (OK, probably not, but I can dream...)
Posted by: Siergen at Thu Jun 14 20:06:46 2012 (PuIGa)
BATTLESHIP
After the success of the Transformers and Twister franchises, Hasbro and Universal looked around for some other Hasbro property to monetize. They inexplicably skipped over the cubist masterpiece that could have been Connect 4 The Motion Picture and went with Battleship.
Although the concept is dubious in the extreme, this film is surprisingly entertaining. Imagine what would happen if Irwin Allen and Ishiro Honda had collaborated and had Jerry Bruckheimers special effects staff. THIS! Seriously, it's a late '50s Toho epic with a disaster movies plot structure.
Taylor Kitsch and Japanese A-Lister Tadanobu Asano are the defacto leads playing two naval officers trying to deal with the alien threat. The film puts both the USN and JMSDF in a really good light. Though they get cut to pieces the survivors use their wits and behave in a fairly intelligent manner. My one complaint was Kitsch's character, who was such a screw up at the beginning that it beggers belief he would have made it that far. On the other hand his getting it together is handled pretty well.
The films effects are pretty good , either a lot more practical effects were used than is the norm or the CGI has gotten a lot better. There are surprises, a couple of obligatory "OH NO WAY!"moments and some unlikely coincidences but amazingly, no glaring plot holes.
This film is by no means art, but is rather better than most. I quite enjoyed it.
I watched two more episodes of Mysterious Girlfriend X.
Good grief this is an odd show.
It's wacky.
It's quirky.
It's gross.
Then this happens...
More importantly, a bit after that happens Urabe makes a pronouncement...
Which, in the context of the episode is really disturbing.
Possibilities:
1: SHE'S AN ALIEN
2: Souvlaki keeps a log of these things and she secretly read it.
3: She's a witch.
4: Souvlaki will soon discover that his quiet high-school life is shattered when Urabe reveals that he has been chosen to pilot a GIANT ROBOT.
Three episodes in, laughs are still outnumbering gag reflexes, but WTFs are catching up to both. I am now quite thoroughly intrigued.
UPDATE: Mauser is doing an in-depth play-by-play and discussion for each episode of this madness. The first installment is here. (spoiler alert)
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This is a hallway in the same school...
Yes, SHAFT tends to be aggressively surrealist in its art direction and this show rather maxes that out. It's quirky look accentuates the otherworldly feel of the story. The use of "lighting" is particularly effective. 
...is a senior at the academically challenging and architecturally improbable Naoetsu High School. He's your typical high school senior with the minor exceptions that he's smart and organized enough to be vice president of the student council and he's a former vampire, having spent much of his junior/senior vacation as a blood sucking creature of the night. He's better now, but struggles with lingering eosophobia which frequently makes getting to first period on time a challenge. 
Hitagi Senjogahara, who our hero recently saved by catching her when she fell down the schools spectacular stairshaft....a kindness for which she is less than grateful. 
