26 April: Winners and Losers Feature at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

26 April: Winners and Losers Feature

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Popularity: 10% [?] Published by tj_han April 26th, 2007 in Anime

Oops I said once a week feature… didn’t realise it’s been 10 days since my last WnL post.

So we are moving into the episode 3s and 4s of every anime series newly released this spring… so who are the winners and losers of the past week?

Winners

Seirei no Mamoribito
I can never pronounce this right. I always go "Seirei no Moribito" on my first try because it’s so intuitive. Jinki: Extend has a Moribito MK II that was sort of etched into my memory, which kind of causes this phenomenon. But I digress. SnM, panned in my last WnL feature, has left me with much egg on my face. It’s actually bloody fantastic and not mediocre as mentioned. After watching episode 3, I am now a fervent fan. The fight scenes were sooo well-choreographed and realistic, Balsa actually does multiple tactical retreats to thin out the enemy crowd, making 4 v 1 situation a 1 v 1. Unlike the 300 Spartans who were campers, she was much more mobile. Like the 300 Spartans, she used her terrain well too, ambushing the poor fellow from the forest. Mr Goblinz commented that the guilty assasin didn’t die as he was ONLY hit by a LARGE ROCK to the temple by an amazon running at full pelt. But I assured him that with the combat realism of this show, that guy is a goner. I also loved how the Prince was so FRODO. Try-hard underdogs are always great tear-jerkers.

Setou no Hanayome
A romantic harem comedy only works when there’s more than one girl. So far, SnH has been rather funny, especially the Masa-san jokes, but episode 4 takes it to a whole new level with the addition of Mawari. Mawari is the daughter of a police officer and has a very similar character to San despite their family background differences. The male lead, I can never remember his name, has dozens of facial expressions and voices which add to the fun too. His kamikaze bomber to defeat two bad guys made me explode with LOL.

Kekkaishi
Not sure how popular this is in the anime blogging circuit, but Kekkaishi enjoys HUGE ratings in Japan and rightfully so. It’s a shounen action anime similar to Naruto and Bleach but it is much better, at least in terms of battle sequences. What can a boy and a girl do with just the ability to cast "barrier"? Not much it seems… judging from RPGs. I almost never cast defensive magic in RPGs. But Masamori and Tokine really make the barrier casting both an art and a science! I’m always amazed what they can come up with, be it using them as stepping stones, sliding escape chutes, traps, even spears and slingshots. Surely the most interesting shounen action out there at the moment, with Bleach and Naruto both suffering from the classic "fear of filler" syndrome, where the pace is soooo turtle slow to avoid catching up to the manga.

The Genso Suikoden Saga
I just completed Suikoden V! It was the easiest RPG I’ve ever played in my life, not that it was a bad thing. The plot was shit, the graphics were shit, the battles were too easy, the music was shit, the voice acting was shit… but I still enjoyed it because it’s Suikoden and far far better than that putrid Suikoden VI. The allure of the Suikoden Saga is the amount of crossovers, references and unveiling of Suikoden world geography. The huge number of characters are great too since you are pretty much choose your unique team. Despite numerous warnings from people who have completed the game to not include Cathari in my final boss party, I still did it. My final team was: Hero, Lyon, Shigure, Cathari, Belcoot, Richard. I had about 18 characters all leveled and fully-sharpened and armoured. Needless to say, I almost died in the final boss battle because the guy did 300 damage to everyone per turn. I didn’t have enough accessories for all 18 people so I put sacrificial Jizos on the empty slots. Cathari and Richard each had one… both died on the first turn. And second. In the end, Hero, Lyon who both had flowing runes, had to finish up their unite Dawn and Twilight rune casts while Shigure with the Crazed and Doubleedge runes got a LUCKY 4 x Critical hit strike on the boss, killing it with a 9000 damage blow. Well, I still like Suikoden anyway and can’t wait for the next sequel to be released. Let’s hope it’s still on PS2.

Shining Tears X Wind and Tony Taka
I bet all of you guys are surprised that ST is a winner. But every season never fails to have a show that’s SO BAD it’s GREAT! None of the characters except Kiriya are insane. They all make incredibly bad decisions based on nothing but sheer emo. The lines are soooo contrived and cliche, and to top it off we have Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala (their voices at least) opposite each other once again. And once again, Athrun (now known as Kiriya) proves to be the superior male. He has a soul blade which looks much cooler and doubles up as a bloody ASSAULT RIFLE. Now how cool is that? The show still does NOT make any sense at all. The chara designs are by TT which explains why all the girls are so hot.

Lucky Star
Every week this show just gets funnier and funnier. The first episode wasn’t really all that great but it’s been improving. I look forward to this every week now. MUCH better than that dirty harem show named after an apparatus which fires off big balls of steel. Oh the 3rd episode’s ending song was epic…

Bokurano and Uninstall
Surely the best show of the season so far? It holds the title for Best OP as well. Uninstall is soooo tragic and catchy at the same time. I actually felt genuinely sad for Waku, it’s not common that anime characters get funerals and such actually amplify the feeling of sadness. But you know what would be even sadder? People (lots of them) who have read the manga and are launching spoilers everywhere. The only protection is to read the manga myself… I was shocked to see Mr Spectacles picked for the next battle though. He struck me as the psychopath type, and such normally do well at survival battles. Guess Bokurano is partly luck too.

Losers

Gainax, 2chan and 4chan
War is all about suffering on all sides. As the pride of Gainax takes a blow, 2chan and 4chan suffer major losses to their intelligence and dignity over the Guren Lagan fiasco. But it was sure as hell funny.

Gurren Lagan
Episode 4, despite what 4ch takes, is actually markedly poorer than the prior 3 episodes.

WW2 History and Political Correctness
It’s really interesting how the Japanese, in their fictional wars, always depict China as a hardline, rigid, militaristic, communist nation who is lusting after their land. Gigantic Formula is the latest show to have this. While I’m not China or in anyway related to them, sometimes I do feel a bit aggrieved at their portrayal. Oh and Japanese fighting forces are always innocent 10 year old kids who have no clue about politics. One thing that we should think about is, if Japanese stories involve Japan being conquered by evil invaders, people’ll complain that the writer is a hypocrite who believes in false Japanised history. But on the other hand, if the fiction has Japan invading other countries, the writer’ll be seen as a nationalistic war-hungry bastard. So is that why there are more moe shows than war series?

Sola, Hitohira, Idolmaster, Aozora
Cos I never watched beyond the first episode.

Singapore
I’m still waiting for the day Singapore gets a major part in an anime, besides being Faye Valentine’s true homeworld and the contributor of Ashura Gundam in G Gundam. Speaking of which, Gigantic Formula has the same concept of G Gundam and it doesn’t have Singapore. Pffft. Thankfully, Pirates of the Carribean: World’s End will be featuring this island nation extensively, and of course, our naturally manly collection of international pirates who look like Chow Yun Fat. Excuse me while I go shiver me timbers. Or something.

Old School Final Fantasy and Square Fans
There was a hoax announcement which made it to the top page of Digg and other major game news sits about how Square Enix was altering their business plan - they would now focus on remakes of classic RPGs. This decision was made apparently after seeing the massive sales of their remakes on the DS and the PSP. I cheered for two days before realising this news was fake. You know, if I ever get my hands on a remade version of Final Fantasy Tactics which had an option to PvP, and I could pit my best team against my fellow FFT fanfriends, I would start believing in not just Buddha, but Jesus. Oh yeah Buddha and friends are actually aliens which can shoot lasers and respawn, every night the GANTZ team goes around weeding them out. That said, if I could pick the top 3 Square games I want remade, my choice would be: Xenogears, FFT and probably FF7. The latter only because there are way too much idiots who claim to be "fans" of FF7 and have bloody never played the game, instead relying on Advent Children as their only interaction with the series. Considering the news was a hoax, looks like Square will continue with their new stupid games which totally aren’t fun at all. I have long given up hope of them producing good games in the near future. I now play only Suikoden games.

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22 Responses to “26 April: Winners and Losers Feature”

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1 DiGiKerot 57 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

There’s a Suikoden VI? Or do you just not do roman numerals?
Xenoglossia is a pretty fun show. I mean, it’s not great or anything (at least not yet), but it is at least diverting for a half hour. There are a lot of far, far worse shows you could watch, anyway.
2 Owen S 144 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

>>WW2 History and Political Correctness

What was that in reference to? Darker than Black?
3 moyism 22 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

Owen S, I’m pretty sure he meant Gigantic Formula as Darker than Black doesn’t deal much with the issue.

Anyway, much agree on Shining Tears X Wind tj! It’s so bad I just enjoy watching it too much, plus the TT-ish art and veteran seiyuus casted make the show a bit more bearable to enjoy than norm.
4 tiny Red Man 149 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

wow…you changed your mind bout らきすた！　interesting..
Oh the 3rd episode’s ending song was epic…
you must have loved it
5 ChronosAI 23 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

If you hate FF7-AConly fans, come here. The abomination will be raised to whole new level, they actually think they know the game’s concept better than those who have actually played it.

The fights in Moribito 03 were too awesome, let’s hope they can continue with this style. Not that many fights but when it happens, it’s brickshitting time. I enjoyed them so much that I just had to make .gif’s out of the sequences. Even the skullcrush was, let’s say, great improvisation.

Seto no Hanayome is one of those series hardly spoken of, rarely if at all. Masa & what’s-her-name little assasin are the main attractions for this show. Along with the awesome faces.
6 shadh 29 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

The FFT remake for PSP which is coming out this May 10th features online PvP among other new things.

So far no English version has been announced but who cares I’m getting it lol.
7 Lupus 67 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

Loser: tj_han for not mentioning Chrono Trigger as a Square RPG that needs a remake.
8 sinistral 17 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 6:33 pm

Suikoden VI will be on PS3. And Suikoden IV is really crap, this I agree. For the sake of upholding my honor of playing and capturing every 108 Stars of all Suikodens I still managed to complete IV. At least the freaking cool Rune of Punishment help saved Suikoden IV face a little.

The winners deserve their title, but Gurren Lagann deserves another chance.

@Lupus,

seems like Square-Enix has more or less abandoned the Chrono series. It’s easier for them to milk Final Fantasy fans.
9 Model_X 21 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

Damn, Lucky Star keeps getting better and better. Konota FTW. XD

No doubt that Square Enix will make new games while at the same time continue to milk the hell out of their old franchises. Nothing like some suckers to buy remakes after remakes. Just look at FF1&2. Ha ha
10 JS 82 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

K, you’ve convinced me continue STxW now.
11 tj_han 1440 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

Oops, Digi, erm yeah I meant IV. LOL, I wish there would be a VI though on the PS2. I was just playing IV again and I realised the graphics are quite good, far better than V. It seems Konami lost focus and tried to compete with other RPGs in the graphics war again. FOOLS. Suikoden was famous for its basic graphics… nobody expects FF level detail.

Owen S: Gigantic Formula of course.

Moy: Glad to see someone with a bit of pedigree agree with me!

Tiny: I don’t know if you’ve confused me with someone else but I’ve always agreed that Lucky Star rocks.

ChronosAI: By “here”, you mean where? Btw I was actually a really good FF VII player who played through the game multiple times and gotten a master run of it. Plus I totally understood the materia system and people called me the “Materia Master” at the age of 10. But enough with the self-trumpeting lol… I realised the AC is a necessary evil. It’s a stepping stone to more FFVII but I just hope it’s not crappy like Dirge of Cerberus.

Lupus: I didn’t like the Chrono series as much as Xenogears.

Sinistral: Where did you get that info from? Anyway I’m playing 4 at this moment.
12 Crest 99 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

There’s a new Chrono game in the works.. but Square Enix is doing a glorious job by not working on this franchise and Seiken Densetsu series. And…. Xenogears is still theirs for them to work on since they own the rights although it would be incredibly hollow without Tetsuya Takahashi, the director for Xenogears and Masato Kato, the script writer and the lyricist to Xenogears.

Seiken Densetsu needs a big console port and not merely handheld games and Square Enix needs to relaunch Chrono Break.
13 Crest 99 comments Apr 26th, 2007 at 10:14 pm

The new game is a supposed port of Chrono Trigger to DS although Square Enix Senior Vice President Hiromichi Tanaka mentioned in an interview this year that the revival of the sequels to Chrono series is possible.
14 41nano 16 comments Apr 27th, 2007 at 12:44 am

Pretty agree with this week’s feature.
I should take a look at Kekkaishi though
15 DiGiKerot 57 comments Apr 27th, 2007 at 4:33 am

Yeah, Suikoden IV LOOKED nice, but in pretty much every other aspect it just utterly failed. The characters mostly sucked, the story mostly sucked (way too straight forward, and with absolutely no scale to it, whilst taking far too long to get nowhere) and pretty much all of the game mechanics sucked. I’m glad they at least fixed (or at least drastically improved them) fo V.

III is still my favourite game in the series, though that probably marks me as weird.
16 CDan 16 comments Apr 27th, 2007 at 7:58 am

I still like Suikoden II the best. It cost me like 900 mexican pesos, but it was worth it…. even with its crappy translation. My fav game of all time.
17 tj_han 1440 comments Apr 27th, 2007 at 10:10 am

Cdan: Wow that is dedication. My favourite was Suikoden 2 as well. Because it had lots of returning Suiko1 characters, the best story out of the 5 so far, and the best characters.

Digi: Suikoden 3 was decent too but I hate 3D so it loses points for that. And Hugo is an idiot. But 3 had a good story too.

Crest: I doubt they would touch Xenogears anymore considering how Xenosaga bombed for Namco. Besides, Saga was more a niche game I suspect and overall wasn’t a very loved RPG for most commonfolk who didn’t get it.
18 DiGiKerot 57 comments Apr 27th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

Yeah, Hugo wasn’t great, but the awesome thing about III was that you didn’t have to be a sucky character for all that long.

Well, that and the heroes were actually characters - you may say that Hugo is an idiot, but at least he has that much characterisation. JRPGs were the hero doesn’t have any dialogue really have a habit of annoying the hell out of me…

I hope Suikoden VI goes back to the other end of the timeline, after Suikoden III. III had all sorts of hints towards what I’d assumed would be in IV but where never expanded upon.
19 Cardcaptor 4 comments Apr 30th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

Hey, I disagree on the assertion that Suikoden V’s art sucks. Well, the backgrounds suck, but the character design is the nicest in the series. I mean: Miakis, Lyon, Miakis, Linfa, Miakis, Faylen, Miakis, Lun, Miakis, Lorelei, Miakis, Norma, Miakis, Viki, Miakis, etc, etc… It’s like the best harem evarrrrr…
20 K 7 comments May 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 am

SnM had Kenji Kamiyama as director, who did the GiTS SAC series so it pretty much would be a winner.
21 Saviour 24 comments May 2nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm

The whole Suikoden talk is pure garbage. Everything is “shit”, yet it was finished and enjoying….
22 wrex 2 comments May 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 pm

Wait… are you serious about the Seirei no Mamoribito thing? Because it’s supposed to be Moribito…

And Lucky Star gets better, huh? I gave up after about 7 minutes of the first episode, but I guess I’ll try the other episodes to be fair.

Do not use any < and > for your own sake. It will end the comment there and then. Also, there is an automatic IQ filter which weeds out comments made by those who accidentally got transported from the stone age.

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