Black Lagoon

Okay, so I decided to do my first anime review on one that I REALLY myself into.  So we all like bloody, gory, gunslinging, bullet zipping, foulmouthed, ass kicking, Quentin Terrentino-inspired action, right?  Okay, well maybe not everyone does, but I most definitely do!  And OMG, does this show fit the criteria of all those adjectives I listed.  I present to you, Black Lagoon.  Not the kiddie books that you used to read when you were in elementary school, OHOHOHOHOHHHHH, NO.  This is something entirely different.  This show is about a japanese businessman, Rokuro Okajima, also known as his nickname, Rock, who gets captured by pirates called the Lagoon Company while he was on a business trip with his fellow coworkers.  After coming up with a crazy ass plan to take down an assassin that was hired by Rock's boss to snuff him out, he starts to take a liking to the action thrilled life of pirating.  He then departs from his job and joins the renegades of the Lagoon Company, Dutch, Benny, and quite possibly my all-time favorite anti-heroine, Revy, also know as Two Hands because of how much serious ass she kicks with her fighting style being jumping around and shooting the hell out of her targets with dual wielding hand guns.  The thing I like the most about this anime is how much it reminds me of my girlfriend and I.  Rock is a lot like me because he still holds onto his ideals of helping every person that is in need of help, especially Revy.  He loves the excitement and adrenaline that comes with being friends with Revy, yet at the same time he holds onto his feeling of right and wrong in a city where that belief is dead.  But at the end of the OVA season, (spoiler alert) he attitude begins to shift over to a manipulative tactician who knows the city of Roanapur and almost all of the people that live in it like the back of his hand, which he can then use to his and the Lagoon Company's advantage.  I can definitely see this happening to me if I were in Rock's position.  Revy is a lot like my girlfriend, because she has a "fuck with me and you die" type of attitude.  But just because she kills a bunch of people and enjoys doing it, doesn't make her a bad person.  If killing was all that Revy was about, Rock wouldn't be her friend.  She doesn't always let her emotions show, but at one point she gets into an argument with Rock which results in Revy lashing out in self-defense at Rock, and nearly shoots him.  At this point it's revealed that while Revy may act tough and doesn't give a shit about anything on the outside, she's emotionally disturbed inside, more so now that she spends most of her time with Rock, whom which, although she'll never admit it, is jealous of the life that Rock used to live, and she really does not want him to end up like her.  Which, as I explained earlier, is unfortunate because Rock does start to shift over to a darker demeanor, which makes Revy both mad and worried.  Overall, this is a really good anime! I found Dub to be just about as good as the Sub.  Rock is voiced by Brad Swaile, who has been my inspiration for voice acting, and Revy is voiced by Marÿke Hendrikse.  Check it out!  You won't be disappointed.

HEEEEEREEEE'S ANDY!!!

WOW!!!  I completely forgot that I had one of these!  Note to self, if I ever teach a class, don't have them start a blog and then forget about it;  have them make a habit of posting.  Which is what I intend to do in  the future.  Got a lot of good games and saw some good movies and shows in the past.  So you can expect something soon.

RWBY

 

If you've ever taken a look as some of Monty Ohm's old YouTube videos, such as Haloid and Dead Fantasy (a crossover of the characters from the Dead Or Alive and Final Fantasy video games) you've no doubt had to struggle to piece back together the grey matter of your mind, due to it being blown by pure epicness.  Ohm is a legend in his own name when it comes to computer animation and fighting choreography. His works are energized, fast paced, action-packed, and around the crowd eye popping.  One of the works that I am really looking forward to seeing progress in the future, is his latest anime-based series:  RWBY.  Back in 2010, Ohm was hired by the production company, Rooster Teeth.  That's right, the same guys that make Red vs. Blue, the longest running web series in the history of the world, brought Ohm into their family.  Ohm's first job with RT, was the fighting choreography in season 8 of Red vs. Blue; Revelation, which was the conclusion to the Recollection Trilogy. He continued to work with the choreography on RVB through 2011 and 2012 for seasons 9 and 10, which was the Project Freelancer series.  At the end of the last episode of season 10, a trailer promoting a Rooster Teeth original series created by Monty Ohm him self.  It's tittle, was RWBY.  The first trailer showed what would appear to be the main protagonist of the show, later revealed as Ruby Red (the red girl to the left).  The trailer's artwork was gorgeous, the music was very beautiful, energetic, and kept pace with the never boring action of Ruby cutting down a bunch of monsters with her gun/scythe.  Needless to say, I was immediately pumped and could not wait for the start of this series along with the premiere of season 11 of RVB.  Over the course of the next few months into the mid summer of 2013, three more trailers were released, revealing the remaining three main protagonists for the series, their names being Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladona, and Yang Xiao Long.  The first season of the show aired on the RT website in Jully.  I have to say, I will probably never get tired of this series as it progresses.  The characters are beautifully designed, have very memorable personalities, and are also quite witty.  The story has got a little ways to go considering that season one ended with a bit of a cliff hanger, with the only character background that was revealed was Blake's.  I have no doubt that the character development will step up along with the story in the coming season 2, which by my estimate will be sometime next spring or summer.  But for how the story is constructed so far, I find it pretty interesting.  I consider this to be the introductory season, with the jucy bits to come later on in the series.  As the saying goes, "good things come to those who wait."  And I will be waiting.  Some of the RT fans are a bit skeptical of how this series will turn out, and I can understand where they are coming from.  This is one of RT's more serious series, and on top of that, it's an anime.  For whatever reason, anime is frowned upon for those in the world who call themselves "normal" (cough, cough, BTW, no such thing).  But that's just the RT fanbase being...well the RT fanbase again, lol.  I don't care what people say about this show, I love it, it's got a lot of potential, and I cannot wait to see what happens next.  Currently season one is on preorder on both DVD and BluRay, and will also be available on iTunes.  Episodes can be viewed separately on Crunchy Roll, YouTube, and of course, Rooster Teeth.com.  I highly recommend you check it out if your interested in this kind of stuff.

Megaman: The Movie

Whenever we video game fans hear about a movie adaptation of a video game, we tend to become a bit skeptical.  Maybe it's because there have been a few movies in the past that have done a REALLY poor job of keeping the movie adaptation RELATED to the game origins.  So it should come as no surprise as to why we get anxious when there  is a legit motion picture that is being made based off of a really popular gaming franchise-especially if it's fan-made.  But…maybe the fact that a video game-inspired movie was fan-made is the preferred alternative.  Why?  Probably because there's no worrying in a bunch of profit-seeking directors botching up the franchise with a completely unrelated and under developed story (cough, cough, Super Mario Bros. Movie).  There is actually one fan-made movie that proves this.  I, of course, am talking about the official fan-made Mega Man live action motion picture.  I have been a HUGE Mega Man fan for years, and I have to say, for a film that was made solely for non-profit purposes….it turned out pretty damn solid.  Yeah, the special and CG effects seem a bit 2005-ish primitive, but this isn't a full scale Hollywood production.  As for the fan-acting….. SPOT FREAKIN ON!!!!!!  Dr. Wily was my favorite because he was portrayed exactly how a mad scientist with an ego problem should be.  The cinematography is also something to behold, especially in the battle scenes, and the orchestrated music is fantastic.  I'm pretty sure a large number of the audience nearly passed out from the orchestra version of the iconic Dr. Wily Stage 1 music from Mega Man 2.  The story plot matched up with the synopsis of the first game pretty well.  There were a few added exposition scenes with character development between Rock (Mega Man's real name), Roll and Dr. Light as a family, but let's face it, you can't have a good story without some type of exposition.  And such great character development there was.  Rock is a bit emo after his creation, sure, but like we all are at some point he just wants a purpose in life, to find a place where he belongs in the world, not just as a machine but as an individual; a person.  He understands that he is not human and he never will be, but he still feels like he should do something that's productive for the human race.  As fate would have it, he gets his chance to do just that when Dr. Wily goes on the war path.  I am 100% satisfied with the results of this movie.  It's up on Screw Attack.com and on YouTube on Blue Core Studio's channel.  Check it out and see what you think.  I garuntee you it'll be interesting, if not awesome.

Xenoblade Chronicles Review

I've always been a fan of JRPG.  The gameplay, the characters, the stories, all of them are very memorable.  One of the most popular JRPGs is Square Enix's Final Fantasy franchise, which never ceases to entertain me.  Nintendo has made their fair share of JRPGs as well, but this one probably puts any of their previous titles to shame.  You rarely ever hear of Nintendo making any full voice acting games, aside from Star Fox, Kid Icarus Uprising, Fire Emblem, and a few other's that I have probably forgot to mention.  I present to you, Xenoblade Chronicles, developed by Monolithsoft, published by Nintendo.  First let's start with a little bit of background history.  Xenoblade Chronicles was released in Japan in the year 2010, along with two other neat JRPG games, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower.  Fans across the world who played these games absolutely loved them!  JRPG fans on the west coast couldn't wait for localization in Amereica...but at that time Nintendo of America said they had no plans whatsoever to localize these three games in the states.  This outraged quite a few Nintendo fans.  Later, a group of dedicated JRPG fans gathered together to create a support group called "Operation Rainfall."  Their goal:  To bring Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower to the U.S. of A.  About a year later in 2011, all three games had been licensed by Nintendo of the United Kingdoms.  OP Rainfall caught wind of this pretty fast, and tried to persuade Nintendo once more but of course, their answer was the same: "No."  Eventually in 1202, Nintendo of America caved into Operation Rainfall's demands and began making plans to release all three games in the U.S., starting with Xenoblade Chronicles.  And thank God they did.  Now on to the gameplay.  If you've ever played Final Fantasies' Twelve and Thirteen, Xenoblade's gameplay mechanics are a combination of both of them.  It's like Twelve because the combat occurs within the realtime free roaming maps, meaning that you don't transition from the field map to a battle stage every time you encounter an enemy, but it's also like Thirteen in the case that your attacks recharge overtime without the use of MP and other party members acting from the CPU.  The game's story takes place on the gigantic bodies of two great titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis, which were engaged in battle over millions of years ago which ended in a stalemate.  The story focusses on the main protagonist, Shulk, voiced by Adam Howden, an eighteen year old mechanic who is studying a mysterious weapon called the Monodo, said to be the very weapon that the Bionis used to fight the Mechonis.  After his hometown is attacked by the relentless Mechon, and his childhood friend killed, Shulk takes up the Monodo to fight back, and is granted the power to see into the future.  What sets this game apart from most JRPGs is that the maps are HUGE!!  Maybe even bigger than the forge world map in Halo.  This provides hours of exploration for the player to embark on, with tons of the strongest enemies in existence for JRPG fans to challenge themselves against. Seriously, if any of you Zelda fans thought that Lake Hylia was huge, the Erith Sea makes that look like a kiddie pool.  Two of my favorite maps are the Gaur Plains and the Mechonis field.  The Gaur Plains has a huge lush grassland that is breath taking, and the machines field has a lot of complex pathways to take using elevators and conveyor belts.  The games musical score has some of the most extraordinary classical, rock and orchestral music ever to be heard.  Even Yoko Shimormura, the music composer for the Kingdom Hearts series created some of the music in this game. Two of my favorite tracks are Unfinished Battle, composed by Yoko Shimormura, and Mechanical Rhythm, composed ACE+.  With a strong, solid gameplay, tons of enemies, a fantastic story, epic music and a strong British voice cast, how can you simply not want to take a crack at this game?  Even if you only get one game for the Wii, I highly recommend Xenoblade Chronicles.  Yeah, it's not an HD game, but this goes to prove that you don't need perfect graphics to create a really enjoyable game.  While playing, I ask that you just take a break for a moment, and focus the camera on the far off image of the enormous, breath taking structure of the Mechonis in the sky.  If that were in the real world, I could stare at that for hours.  I give this game a 1000/10.

Hello World!!

Welcome to my blog.  Believe it or not this is actually my first time blogging in my entire life, so I apologize if any of my speech seems a bit...lacking anyways, what you'll see on this post are various things that have to do with movies, TV shows, commercials, video games, just about anything that's media related.  And yes I am the same "TheOmega360" on Youtube, the one that everyone thinks his voice sounds like Dan Green; no joke.