doctorfaust: (Default)
So, I have reached case 3 of Phoenix Wright 3 in my replay through the series.

I think overall, I would say 2 is the best game in the series. I say this because of the strength of the cases 2-2 and 2-4. 2-2 was pretty surprising the first time I played through it and one of the few times (maybe even the only time) where I can sympathize with the real killer. Then in 2-4 you have the additional layered story of Mayoi being kidnapped, and the semi-twist ending to that case is really good. Overall, the writing is really rock solid. 2-3 is kind of a stupid case, but I think I only say that because I didn't really like any of the NPCs in that case (they're all circus freaks heh).

Looking back at PW1, 1-2, with Chihiro's death, was fairly plain (then again, it's the first real case so it can't be blamed). 1-3, the Tonosaman case, isn't particularly special either. The real money of course is 1-4 and the DL6 case and in the re-release, 1-5, both of which are pretty good.

Once you get to PW3... it's really neat that 3-1 is a tutorial case featuring a young Chihiro, and from what I recall the Chinami (Dahlia) storyline is fairly compelling as it stretches through 3-1, 3-4, and 3-5. The problem is the "filler" cases. 3-2 (with the Kamen Mask thief) was fairly contrived, and it's also your first exposure to Godot. Godot's arguments always seem pretty random, they never struck me as plausible as Mitsurugi's or Franziska's (not that they don't have implausible objections sometimes but still). 3-3 though is probably the worst case in the series, with the whole extremely contrived "fake Naruhodou" storyline, which somehow requires multiple people to think that somebody who does not look nor talk like Naruhodou actually is him.

Anyway of course after this I'll move on to 3-4 and 3-5, and we'll see if the Dahlia storyline is as good as I remember. I'm debating whether to replay PW4 again. I really didn't like it when I played it before, but I've only played it once, unlike the other PW games, so possibly I haven't given it a fair shot. Then again, Guild Wars 2 comes out Saturday, so I very likely may not get to it.
doctorfaust: (Default)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-oE8aYK0W0&feature=player_embedded
Tales of Xillia 2 battle system PV.

Meeeeh. I really am not liking some things. Mostly how the main character has his own special system where he can transform and turn into some superpower form. The guy already wields three different weapons, unlike everybody else, now they gave him his own special meter. I dislike when party-ensemble RPGs make one character more advantageous to use than everybody else. It's like how in the original Phantasia, Cless was way better than everybody else, which meant that even though you could control other characters, nobody in their right mind would.

Sadly I'm probably going to end up being stuck playing it since I'll want to know what happens with Leah and Elise... and Tippo!

Where's Milla dammit, she better be in.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Hey I'm not dead.

It's kind of stunning how many people don't realize that Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright) is set in Japan. I went to watch the movie's trailer on Youtube, and the majority of the comments are along the lines of "how come everybody is Japanese?" or "Asian von Karma, what?"

Um, because the game's set in Japan. It was only in the American release where they changed the location to the US, as well as made some characters German.

Anyway, the movie is coming out on disc 8/22. I'll finally be able to watch it. In preparation, I started replaying the first game just to remind myself what happened. I want to see how closely the game matches up to the movie; the trailer does make it seem like a lot of ground will be covered.
doctorfaust: (Default)
I haven't posted to this in ages. Does anybody still read this? I feel like the world in general is moving away from LJ/DW-like services and moving towards tumblr, twitter, and the like.

Anyway, I've been busy with work too so I don't post much anymore.

Xillia 2 just got announced. I'm very disappointed. It happens a year later and the main characters are different, and it happens in the other world, but. The story to Xillia 1 was just so poorly written. The main guy uses multiple weapons (switches between three styles), and the main girl is an 8 year old loli and they didn't show any battle sshots for her. Which makes me afraid that this is going to be like Ratatosk, and it's going to be a really dull game battle-system-wise. Not to mention I've just lost faith in Tales studio in general after Xillia's bare-bones approach - I wouldn't be terribly surprised if X2 also has no arena, no nekonin island, and alternate costumes only through paid DLC. But, I guess we'll see.

On a different note, I've been watching this amazing series on Nicovideo. Some guy who is apparently a big fan of both Idolmaster and Phoenix Wright made a series of videos that take Haruka and Yayoi from Idolmaster, and puts them into the PW world where Haruka is a novice lawyer. What's amazing is that the video looks exactly like it's from the game, except of course the sprites are handdrawn. The guy wrote his own case, made up his own subcharacters and animated all of the sprites, then he added in sound effects and a fake user interface that looks like it's exactly from the game. The sheer volume is amazing too - altogether the first case is probably 2 hours or longer. Sadly, the guy stopped in the middle of making the second case (right after the infamous "9/18 Incident" in the Idolmaster world) and it's been uncompleted for 2 years now. I don't really know Idolmaster, but PW fans would still get a kick out of this. The love of the series is palpable, like how Itonoko and the Judge act just like they would in the games. The writing is good too, it's even better than some of the worse cases in the actual game series.

Watching the first case made me want to play the games yet again. It also reminds me that I need to see the Live Action movie... last I heard Miike was still thinking about international release for it.
doctorfaust: (Default)
The main problem I'm having with High School of the Dead is the same problem I have with 95% of all zombie apocalypse movies, which is that in general all of the crises and conflicts are caused by the living people being stupid. So for instance, if the characters know zombies react to sound, why the fuck are they going to have a shouting match in a crowd of zombies? I'll give it a few more chances if only because of the 豪華声優陣 and the attractive girls but otherwise it's not really doing much for me.

On a completely different note... those of you who live in the US may remember the series of Old Spice commercials featuring Terry Crews, AKA the President from Idiocracy from a few years ago. Recently somebody uploaded these videos to Nicovideo, and just like how Americans are often fascinated by bizarre Japanese commercials, the Japanese have been fascinated by the strangeness of these commercials. The original compilations (http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17444108 and http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17466816) are creeping up on a million hits and have consistently been on the ranking charts since they were uploaded.

But the real gem is Nico's meme/MAD-loving audience. So for instance you get Touhou versions of the commercials:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17467167
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17500563
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm17484686
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17478567

Mashups with Japanese commercials:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17494646

Putting him in Rhythm Heaven:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17483463

And numerous well-known songs:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17509012 (Totoro Theme)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17470022 (Hakugin Disco from Nisemonogatari)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17482612 (Those who Fight Further from FF7)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17465194 (Tai-buki Boss Battle from Super Mario RPG)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17486682 (Kono Ki, Nan no Ki)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17493229 (The "Tettette~" theme from Idolmaster)
doctorfaust: (Default)
I sure don't post much anymore, do I? Then again I think the number of readers for LJ/DW has dropped in general. It's a little sad though, cause LJ was always what I reserved for fanboyish life updates pertaining to games or anime or whatnot while Facebook and so on was for more "normal" posts.

Anyway.

Played the Madoka PSP game. It's fun if you're a fan of the series. Otherwise I don't think anybody would like it.

Shows I recently watched:

Black★Rock Shooter Short run, only 8 episodes. It was pretty good, though kind of weird.

Nisemonogatari Eleven episodes, just finished. Bakemonogatari was really good (incidentally I heard that they announced they were bringing Bakemonogatari to the States at Sakuracon this weekend). Nisemonogatari is pretty good too. I really should read the original light novel series, it seems pretty damn popular. They've announced that they're making a movie out of Kizumonogatari and that they're working on a new series as well, so this will be long-going.

Fate/Zero Second Season Yesssssssss. Been waiting for this for months. The new OP is pretty fantastic, though I'm still debating in my head as to whether it's better than the first season's. I still can't get over how good the first season's OP sequence fits along with "oath sign" as the song.

Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna I was shocked to hear a new Lupin III series was coming. For those not familiar with it, it's a classic manga series that has had several anime series and 10+ movies/OVAs associated with it. The first two TV series were in the mid-'70s, the third one was in the mid-'80s, so yeah, to have a new TV series in 2012 is pretty incredible. And Mine Fujiko is Miyukichi this time around!

High School of the Dead Not a new show, but one that I recently started watching. The main heroines are Inoue Marina, KitaEri, and Miyukichi, so yeah, of course I was going to give it a chance. I'm not sure that it's any good so far though, guess we'll see.
doctorfaust: (Default)


Japan needs to stop making Madoka music videos that make me cry.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Haven't posted in awhile. Busy as usual.

So, among other things, I watched Kannazuki no Miko recently. As opposed to what Maiki thinks, no, I didn't watch it because some girl told me to :P I've heard that it is somewhat of a cult favorite here for being one of the few yuri anime to make it to the States. I didn't really know anything about it though, other than you'll see tons of parody artworks of the ending sequence for both yuri and yaoi (and some straight too, I suppose) couples.

The series overall though was kind of a mess. It's part yuri... part shounen mecha series. If that sounds discordant to you, then yeah, pretty much. There's a lot of sudden things that develop which I'm sure may be better-explained in the original manga. It's not particularly memorable otherwise... although it is pretty refreshing to have a series where the lead male and lead female characters don't end up being the canon couple, and it's the two female leads that are the canon.

Oh, the music is an exception though. The opening theme is Re-sublimity by KOTOKO, and the ending is agony by the same, and both tracks are really good.

Last episode of Black Rock Shooter airs this week, if I am not mistaken, and Nisemonogatari just finished. I have some catching up to do... Fate/Zero comes back in April!
doctorfaust: (Default)
http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/5957700.html
So, the mystery as to why the Lollipop Chainsaw trailer had two voices for Juliet is revealed... for some reason, the PS3 and 360 versions of the game have different lead seiyuu! Juliet is Hikasa Youko on the PS3 version, and Kitamura Eri on the 360 version.

I have to say, that's probably the first time I've heard of the PS3/360 versions of the game having different seiyuu despite being in the same language. But options, I guess? Maybe [profile] rumichan will be interested in the PS3 version now, heh. Conversely...

Did I mention, that Kitamura Eri is rapidly becoming one of my favorite seiyuu? I'm really annoyed that this is developing AFTER AX 2011, where I actually met her, though at the time I was only moderately familiar with her and I wasn't really a huge fan of anything she'd done at that point (Juri in Street Fighter, Alleyn in Queens Blade, Yui in Angel Beats etc.). But fastforward to 2012 and you have her being Sayaka in Madoka, and Karen in Nisemonogatari, two of my favorite characters in recent years. She's got some good range, spanning everything from the cute moeblob girl (Yui) to the sadistic psycho villain (Juri). And you know, she's not just a good seiyuu but an interesting person too; thinking about her talk event at AX, she was really good at working the crowd and being an interesting host, compared to say, Horie Yui's panel where the MC just lead things. Her twitter is fairly entertaining too, not quite as randomly entertaining as Sugita's, but then again, few people are. So yeah. I have a Kitamura Eri autograph from AX, which is great, but it's on ToraDora CD which I don't really have strong feelings for one way or the other.

Anyway, interesting news. I wonder who the rest of the cast will be. I'm pretty sure I heard Okamoto Nobuhiko (Accelerator from To Aru) in the trailer, his voice is pretty distinctive.
doctorfaust: (Default)
They announced the results of the 6th annual Seiyuu Awards!
http://seiyuawards.jp/201203/02020000.php

Best Male Lead:
Hirata Hiroaki (Tiger & Bunny - Kotetsu; One Piece - Sanji)

Best Female Lead:
Yuuki Aoi (Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica - Madoka; A Channel - Tooru; GOSICK - Victorica; Last Exile - Giselle; Ben To - Hana)

Best Male Supporting:
Kimura Ryouhei (Haganai - Kobato; Kimi to Boku - Yuuki)
Miyano Mamoru (Uta Prince - Kiya; Steins Gate - Okabe; Dog Days - Izumi)

Best Female Supporting:
Katou Emiri (Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica - Kyuubei; Denpa Otoko - Ryuuko; Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu - Hideyoshi; Ben To - Ayame; YuruYuri - Sakurako)

Best New Male:
Eguchi Takuya
Matsuoka Yoshitsugu

Best New Female:
Kayano Ai
Mikami Shiori

The awards define "new" as "debuting within the last 5 years", so ample room for selection there. There's numerous other awards too. One of the winners of the Special Award category this year was Kawakami Tomoko... rest in peace :(

One of the major criticisms the Seiyuu Awards gets every year is that the major awards (including the ones above) include public voting as part of the criteria, and in general sometimes a seiyuu gets voted up not because they are a particular good seiyuu but because they happen to do an extremely popular character that year. For instance, this year Hirata Hiroaki really only did Kotetsu, and he's had Sanji as an ongoing role. Kimura Ryouhei also basically just had his role in Kimi to Boku (I doubt anybody voted for him for Haganai), and if I'm not mistaken both characters were extremely popular among slash fangirls. Compare this to for instance Yuuki Aoi, Miyano Mamori, or Katou Emiri, all of whom had multiple big name roles in 2011 - they seem a little bit more deserving of an award for making big splashes last year. Oh, and also showing that slash fangirl voting may have a disproportionate role - the winner for this year's Singing Award, which in the past has gone to the likes of Mizuki Nana or Chihara Minori, this year went to the entire Uta no Princesama cast. LOL. They aren't particular good or bad singers one way or the other, but yeah, they are really damn popular with the fangirls. Not the first time it's happened though; several years ago the winner was the Haruhi cast, then in 2009 it was the K-On cast.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Going along with that Disney theme... this video is like 5 years old but on the off chance that some of you have never seen it before:



This guy sings A Whole New World... both the male and female parts. And he's a damn good singer too. He has a whole series of these actually.
doctorfaust: (Default)
A retweet from #elendia exposed me to this madness. Apparently, last week, they released an album featuring an assortment of male seiyuu singing Disney songs. Yes.

And now somebody's uploaded them to Youtube! Quick watch them before they get taken down!

1. Kamiya Hiroshi doing You Can Fly
2. Suzumura Ken'ichi doing A Whole New World
3. Fukuyama Jun doing Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo
4. Sakurai Takahiro doing When You Wish Upon A Star
5. Sugita Tomokazuwwww doing One Jump Ahead
6. Midorikawa Hikaru doing Can You Feel The Love Tonight (complete with Engrish title line)
7. Morikawa Toshiyuki doing Once Upon A Dream
8. Seki Tomokazu doing Go The Distance
9. Irino Miyu doing Under the Sea
10. Yamadera Kouichi doing Circle of Life

My brain. Cannot process. God especially friggin' Sugita, he even sings the part sung by the old ladies and other townspeople in the town in that song.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Now that they've started releasing Madoka here, I wonder what they'll do with the ED for Episode 9. On the BluRay release, they changed it from Magia to a duet song by Kitamura Eri/Nonaka Ai (Sayaka and Kyoko's seiyuu), as if the episode wasn't tearjerking enough.

The Madoka PSP game is coming out soon. About two and a half weeks now? If you go to the About section of the game's website, then click on the last entry in the left hand column, you can see some of the special moves for each character. Kyoko has a "Kuu kai?" move complete with apple, apparently. Whereas Sayaka has a berserk mode...

Random thoughts, don't mind me.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Hey Los Angeles pals:

In about two weeks (week of March 5th or thereabouts) I'll be visiting LA to try and find a place to live for when I move out there in June. If anybody could put me up for a few nights, that'd really be appreciated. And even if not, I'd love to see/hang out with y'all while I'm in town.

...it occurs to me I've never even rented a car before. Oh geez, this'll be a world of new experiences.
doctorfaust: (Default)
http://www.sakuracon.org/programming/guests.php
Fuuuuck, both Iwakami and Urobuchi are going to be at Sakuracon. I wish I could go. Sometimes it's really annoying being a doctor. You can't take vacations at the drop of a hat.

In related news, they just showed Episode 3 of Madoka on Italian TV yesterday morning. I haven't heard about any angry parents writing in to TV stations yet, ha.

Also, awhile back I declared that the ultimate modification was the best Madoka music video ever made. Well, it now has some serious competition in the form of TeSH's "Walpurgisnacht":



Like the ultimate modification, the video actually tells a story separate from the main series. There's no lyrics, so no subtitles are required to get the full impact. (The music, which is awesome in its own right, is "Croatian Rhapsody" by Croatian pianist Maksim.) The attention to detail is insane, and the guy is clearly a pro at editing as they're able to create scenes that never appeared in the original show. Unlike the ultimate modification it's a Bad End video, so keep the kleenex handy. I guess it should be a tipoff that the opening scenes are broken versions of Mami's, Sayaka's, and Kyoko's hair accessories.
doctorfaust: (Default)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16953964
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16958631

Italian-dubbed Madoka! The voice choices are interesting... some of them it seems like they tried to match the original voices as much as possible, especially Madoka and Kyuubei. Whereas Mami... is pretty different ha. And what do they call Tiro Finale in Italian? They still call it Tiro Finale, which probably sounds less cool when you actually speak Italian.

Remember, they're showing this at 10 AM... poor Italian kids.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Politics aside...

【ニコニコ動画】【比較】MMDDFF【FF再現バトル】

Super impressive. Somebody remade the entire Dissidia opening with MikuMikuDance, replacing characters with Miku, Reimu, Solid Snake, Black Rock Shooter, Enoch etc. plus a lot of characters I don't actually recognize. The attention to detail is insane. Also they remixed in music from Type-Zero and added a lot of dialogue. Oh, and Wakamoto is Chaos in Dissidia, so they replaced him with Chiyo Chichi from Azumanga Daioh lol.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Heard about this from [profile] dr_teng:
http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/pmj7f/a_necessary_change_in_policy/

Apparently, reddit's admins put their foot down and said "no more depictions/discussions of sexuality and minors". Predictably, a small but vocal subset of redditors are now super-pissed, screaming foul, censorship, blah blah blah. I guess there was also a campaign from Somethingawful to harass Reddit about it, so it's turned into a nerdgroup-vs-nerdgroup thing as well. But yeah, it sounds kind of similar to when Livejournal shut down certain Harry Potter communities on the grounds that they were slash/lemon fanfic of underage kids. People got pissed, a lot of people ended up going to dreamwidth, and of course complaints of foul, censorship, etc.

One of the big pet peeves I have is how frequently people on the internet yell that they're being censored or having their free speech restricted. It's just an example of how pisspoor Americans are at Civics/Government. As a reminder of the text of the First Amendment...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yup, it's "Congress shall make no law". It's not "reddit shall not", it's not "LJ shall not", etc. etc. There is no group on the internet that is obligated to protect your free speech. If reddit wants to censor what you post on reddit's servers, tough luck! If twitter wants to delete your tweet, they're 100% within their rights to do so. The whole argument about "It's not child porn/it's not illegal" is completely moot. FB/twitter/reddit/LJ/whoever could censor you talking about corn growing if they wanted to, it makes no difference. If dreamwidth wanted to delete this post, would I be pissed? Yeah, cause I would think it's not warranted. But I wouldn't go crying that my rights were being trampled on.
doctorfaust: (Default)
Apparently, they're going to show (already started showing?) Madoka Magica and Ano Hana back to back on Italian TV. Wow. Talk about two of the most tear-jerking shows in recent memory. I think it's actually a conspiracy to turn the whole of Italy depressed. Oh, did I mention they're showing them at like 10 AM on Sundays? Poor Italian kids! They won't know what they're getting into until Mami **********s!
doctorfaust: (Default)
I had the day off today. So what did I do? Why, nothing constructive, of course!

Psst Maiki, I made Veigue again harhar.

ED'S SOUL CALIBUR V CUSTOM CHARACTER EXTRAVAGANZA )

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