Vindictus is set in a fantasy town, and is the precursor to Mabinogi. However, while Mabinogi is somewhat light and happy in tone, Vindictus throws most of that away for a happy exterior covering a shell of weird horror and creepy revelations.

As this is an MMO, I’ll start off with the character classes. Each has some text description in the selection screen, which saved the developers from having to characterize several characters through gameplay and interaction with friendly non-player characters. It’s acceptable in this situation, as characterization through gameplay and NPC interactions is essentially an insurmountable task. However, interaction with the NPCs does reveal a lot about them as a character and the world you are playing in. It also turns most of the NPCs into interesting characters in their own right.

Classes: Each class is gender locked, as is typical of overseas MMO games. Each class also has a name instead of a class label. There are currently four player characters released, with a fifth planned.

Evie is the mage type character. She uses a staff, but can later use a scythe. She can also use powerful spells like reverse gravity, and she can summon golems from the landscape. She is the weakest character in terms of health, but her mana shield can save her, and her powerful attacks means a staff Evie is pretty much THE best character to solo run any mission. However, that assumes you have the skill to use her that well. She is easy for beginners to grasp, but can be harder to master, which can be a problem in larger battles if the Evie can’t support the rest of the team. While she is the best to solo run missions, she is best for solo runs of missions below her level, as missions at her level will find her against enemies that can kill her pretty easily, or pretty much instantly kill her. Her abilities will also usually not be high enough in rank to take on the big boss, and the recharge on her abilities can make it even harder.

Fiona is a more tank-type character. She uses a sword and shield, although later she gains a hammer, and even later, she gains the ability to use large shields. She has lots of armor, and lots of defensive skills that allow her to be good at soloing missions as well as a really useful addition to any team. Her counterattacks also allow her to stun bosses, and her blocking skill can even stop the charges of some of the strongest bosses.

Lann is best described as the rogue. He carries two swords, or later, two spears. He can cause massive amounts of damage every second, and has reasonably high health. He is a class best suited for a really experienced player, as anyone short of that will find themselves dieing over and over. He is not good at solo missions, as he dies pretty effectively. He can also be annoying paired with another character, as they will often find themselves having to revive the Lann on their team.

Karok is pretty much a giant. He is some monstrous character that uses a pillar as his weapon. Basically, the first one is a tree, and later ones are things like monument gravestones and stone columns. His other weapon the he eventually learns to use is the Cestus, which is basically big metal or stone or whatever gloves that he bare-handed fights things to death with. Honestly, I don’t have a Karok of high enough level to have them, and I don’t play Karok often enough to get to that level, and they were released just recently.

The final character is Kai, who seems to be an archer. He is not yet released.

Well, the backbone of any MMO game is the combat. Sadly, the combat in Vindictus, while fun at first, gets pretty repetitive. Combo building is simple and intuitive, and abilities like dodging, combat rolling, or teleporting allow you to jump into and out of the range of bosses and attack quickly. And that is how pretty much every battle will play out Some bigger bosses can make it much harder, but pretty much every boss has a pretty easy to see attack pattern, so it merely becomes an execution challenge to defeat the boss. It becomes especially annoying when you need to gain an item which is gained by hitting a certain spot on the boss with a spear. Like the gem on the arm of one boss. Sometimes, you need those items for a quest, which is especially annoying.

It dangles abilities and weapons in front of you as the carrot to get you to move along. At level 24, you gain your alternate weapon, and access to the abilities that come with the alternate weapon. For example, Evie can use mana amber to dodge attacks, which surrounds her in a giant crystal that can be knocked around without her receiving much or any damage (based on the strength of the boss.) When she gets the scythe, her Mana Amber is replaced with a teleport ability. And instead of being able to sue a heal spell, she can now use a very easy combo to steal health from an attacked enemy.

All classes gain their alternate weapon at level 24.

At level 40, there is a special title you get for making it that far. Which isn’t really worth it, given how few quests there are around level 37-40, so getting that far required grinding a battle over and over to get enough xp. Either it is a clever system to find only the most dedicated players, or just they couldn’t think of anything else to put there and put a title as acknowledgement that yes, there is not a lot to do, so here is a small thing you get for getting past the few quest section of the game.

Like any MMO, there is a basic story to set up a reason why you should travel to various dungeons and kill x number of monster z. In this one, it is because the Fomors 9which seems to be an alliance of various monsters seen in every fantasy game) have attacked the people and you must defeat them. Actually, they are vicious and do attack human settlements, but you actually fight against them to fulfill the prophecy that when all the evil Fomors are dead, the humans as a whole will move onto the heaven place where the Goddess is. The greatest supporter of this is the pretty cute NPC Tieve, who is also the oracle. Just to recap: the cutest character in the game is also the biggest advocate of the mass genocide you will commit.

Really, that ends up being Fridge Horror, as you probably won’t notice it all at first until you go get a snack and stop to think about the latest development in the story.

Other characters include a Ice Queen, who you melt somewhat, a military commander and a hero who rides around on a dragon. And one of the later quests is to show the townspeople how useful and needed the dragon is so they will not be as angry with the dragon droppings it leaves around the town.

There are some minor inconsistencies, but pretty much all of them have to do with limitations in the game itself and the game world. Spoiler alert: One later battle is called Colhen in Flames, and the starting town has been attack and is being burned down, and you must defeat the boss monster. And then yo go back to Colhen, which is still there. It would be unreasonably hard to have the starting town destroyed for some people, but there for others, which is why things like that are only done in persistent world games, where player(s) advance the plot, and actions are permanent. Games like that will either be single player, or they will have people start out learning the beginner stuff from a specific person in an area that can’t be reached before being dropped into the game world.

Oh, and speaking of other tidbits, at level 42 you can start the quest chain to learn with Dark Knight or Paladin abilities. Dark Knight is a transformation that gives you immense attack power, while Paladin gives a defense boost, and other things that best help your team. Actually, each ability is best paired with a specific character, so there isn’t really much choice. DK is best for Evie, as she can kill a boss in a VERY short amount of time, while still being able to heal and assist her teammates, and Paladin does not give her a heal boost or other team assist abilities, so DK allows you to help your team by becoming the main attack force. Paladin is good for Fiona, as she an boost her teams’ defense, while boosting her own defense and allowing her to save her team from the boss. Fionas usually spend a lot of time blocking and counterattacking, not directly attacking a boss, and they and their team benefits best from Fiona being a paladin. Lann benefits from DK best, as it boosts his attacks and allows him to cause much more damage before dieing, while Paladin boosts his defense, which isn’t to useful for a class that is purely offense. Karok is pretty good for a Paladin, as while he is an attacking character, he also has abilities that allow him to grapple larger bosses, and some bosses, he can simply grab and start punching. Paladin best allows him to grapple a bigger boss and helps his team to best defeat it.

One of the biggest problems Vindictus has is player retention. The ability system works by giving you some points every so often for free, so you can just not play for a week and have enough points to rank up an ability. Plus, at around level 50, it becomes hard to find people to join in on battles you need. At level 60, it becomes even harder. If they patch it to give new battles and a max level of 80, then the high level players will come back and rang up to the max, before disappearing again. Some high level players remain around a lot, but they are usually assisting lower level teams in massive raid battles. The problem there s that with how hard it can be to find someone to run a battle with you, most players disappear at the higher levels simply because running a battle becomes such an infrequent task, they may as well wait and use the gained ability points (which they get much more often at the higher levels) to give hem free ranks in their abilities and allow them to be much more powerful when they do manage to get into a battle.

Obviously, you can choose whatever you want, but I am just laying down the suggestions for what works best for what class.

Score: 4/5 good

Pros: interesting story, interesting character, fun to play. Big bosses, interesting battles, fun challenges.

Cons: spends a a bit too much time at times being not fun at all. finding people to assist in battles above level 60 is like pulling teeth from a herd of cats.

Suggestion: buy it. Just kidding, Nexon games are free to play. You should at least try it out, it is pretty worthwhile. You may not want to stay with it, but that is okay. While Nexon games are free to play, and not even pay to win, they do sell purely aesthetic items such as inner armor (underwear) and dye containers that allow you to color your armor, as well as some other things that do not affect gameplay, life fishing poles for if you want to fish (or you can spend some gold instead of real dollars on the harpoons.) However, they do allow you to complete a bunch of free offers, trials, and other things for the NX points (to buy stuff) so you don’t need to spend your hard-earned cash.

You can get the game here: Vindictus.nexon.net

Where did it come from: Well, the game is based off a sketch of several girls with disabilities that was posted to…THAT website. No, I am not going to link it, but I think you know which one I mean.

Background: You play as Hisao, who is confessed to by a girl, then he has a heart attack (he happens to have Long QT Syndrome) and ends up going to a school just for kids with physical disabilities. There, he meets several girls, and can end up with a relationship with any of them. There are good endings which the game makes you really work for, and there are bad endings where you either die, or screw up the girl beyond belief.

Plot: I believe I gave it away above. Individual plotlines depend on the storyline you are playing through. I wouldn’t know, because I put this game down after getting partway through several paths.

Feel free to call it unprofessional. The game, I mean. That is why I put it down-it became unprofessional and flaws became evident. In addition, they were the sort of flaws where I simply objected to them, so I ended the game. I will not play it again. I did enjoy the story, and it was reasonably done. The story was emotional and gripping, but other issues greatly took away from the enjoyment of it.

Let’s start with the first, the title. While it essentially means ‘Imperfect Girl’ and is the intended title, katawa is a Japanese word that is considered offensive enough that it cannot be said on TV or radio. Actually, given what ‘katawa’ really means, a better name for the game in english would be somehting along the lines of ‘Gimp Girls.’

Why is that a problem? Well, first off, it insults an entire group of people. Secondly, it insults the group of people THAT THE GAME ITSELF IS TRYING TO SHOW RESPECT TO. You lose your message of ‘these people are people too’ when the very first thing someone notices in your game is highly offensive.

Secondly, it was made by several writers. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, big studios like Nitroplus use multiple writers. However, apparently the place that made this game couldn’t get the writers to agree on characterization, so EVEN THE MAIN CHARACTER changes how he is by simply playing a different story. Even the girls change-you can play through on story, meet some other girl that you may want to try for next time based on the little bit of her personality you glimpsed, and then when you go for her, your character is different in personality and she is different. It is not as in each girl you know more about her character, as pretty much every VN will do that, a storyline will reveal much more about the girl. However, there generally isn’t a radical personality change. In addition, the main character himself changes depending on the route-in some he’s a nice and somewhat romantic guy, in another, he is noticeable colder and indifferent to the girl.

That is some fairly poor design.

The game is also a bit of an idealist game, in the ‘no matter how bad it is, you can still find love, etc’ kind of way. However, it really makes you work for your good ending, and the bad endings are better suited to one of those crying games. Earn your happy ending is a pretty cynical trope, and best used in cynical games, not idealistic games. Nothing is wrong with really sad endings, but those are suited to crying games, NOT idealistic games. Did the developers even think about what kind of game they were making, because the end result is a thrown together mish-mash of ideas from all types of games and all stops along the scale of idealism vs cynicism. Nothing is wrong with it being Idealistic, but the inclusion of cynicism offsets the positive message. Conversely, if it had been primarily cynical and had included idealistic portions would only offset the message the cynicism is trying to give.

However, it could be expected. The use of cynicism in an idealistic setting, or idealism in a cynical setting, if done REALLY carefully, can serve to underline and enhance the intended message. Most likely they were trying for that, but they did kind of fall flat on that. Still, I have respect for them here, as failing due to over ambition is much better than failing due to not even trying.

Also, this game isn’t a translation of a fan game from Japanese, it was made in english by a group of people who wanted it to seem Japanese, so they made up foreign sounding words (Iwanako and Yamaku are two examples) and wrote the game to read like a translation.

Even better, it has an image gallery and a cutscene gallery. Last time I saw a gallery was in an H game, where the goal was to collect all the scenes. I didn’t play it past that point. For a game trying to treat it’s characters with respect, a gallery of collected images and clips is pretty much the opposite of treating with respect.

Even better, it has a more underage friendly option to turn off the adult scenes in the game. And you can do that, except important characterization and story developments are revealed during those times.

The story itself isn’t too bad, and I have gone on record as saying a well done story is one of the things I highly praise. But the game lacks consistency between storylines, and it lacks respect for the subject material it ostensibly respects.

The game is a bit like having a friend who is really nice to you, but then goes and joins the KKK. they may be really nice, but they did also join a hate group.

What I also found was the developers seem to have no love for the game. They have stated they they will lie, mislead, and troll people about the game. That isn’t professional. Even though they are an independent, group, I would expect them to behave with some respect towards their game and their audience.

The lack of love for the game is visible: the game comes across as a game made just for your average anime or manga fan, who doesn’t really care about consistency. It has a bunch of annoying bits, like Mischa’s laugh, that are brought across often enough that they became a meme. The super deformed versions (chibi) of the girls that appear on menu screen have also been turned into memes.

And, in the end, that is what this game was meant to do. Not to bring respect to a subject, but to say they will and get attention for it. The developers don’t want people to remember the game as much as they want people to remember the developers. Despite their anonymity, these developer simply want attention, and made this game to get that lasting attention. Not only that, but stating that it is to be the antithesis to other Visual Novels and the standard female character is also part of that attention. They gained big publicity over that, as well as the fact that their game will be free, and will feature disabled characters as the characters in the story. And before you think by publicity I mean lots of fat drooling fanboys on whatever that one website is, I mean actual gaming journals picked up the story.

The characters were not treated with respect, they were merely token characters with the added thing of ‘they are gay’ or ‘they are disabled.’ (No gay characters were noticed.)

As in, this game will be the ONLY Visual Novel most people who play games will play.

Score: 0/5 very bad.

Pros: the story isn’t half bad

Cons: the most noticeable is the disparity: if you want an idealistic game, you don’t put a lot of cynical tropes into it. If you want a cynical game, you don’t make it idealistic. the combining of the two merely makes the game feel like it isn’t sure what it wants to be. The game is offensive towards the people it intends to portray inoffensively, poorly made, and a shout out for attention. It isn’t made to bring respect to the disabled, but attention and adoration to the developer by the kind of rabid fan that gives the rest of us a bad reputation.

Loser fanboy score (this measures how much loser fanboy appeal this has): 10/10 (designed to appeal right to them.)

I suggest watching this video: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/diversity

the game does have a little potential in the idea that wasn’t ruined by attention hungry developers, so the best you can hope is that a talented game studio will pick up the idea of disabled characters and treating them with respect, and make a well-done game with the idea.

[EDIT]: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and my apologies for forgetting about the researched proof. Yes, I can say ho a game was, but ideally, a claim of offensive words best requires pointing out proof of that.

I also can’t believe I forgot to mention it, but Emi’s legs are Cheetah’s, as seen here: http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=13462 Yes, they are designed just for running. Yes, they cost an insane amount of money. And yes, they are specfically banned from track and field competitions. And not just small scale competitions too-the Special Olympics had banned them. Why? Because they can make you run faster than if you had your normal legs.

The mention of the developers admitting to lieing, misleading and trolling was taken from the developer blog. The details on idealism vs cynicism, idealistic tropes, cynical tropes, and the knowledge that ‘Katawa’ is offensive was taken from TV Tropes. Thanks to them for the info.

Copied from TV Tropes page on Katawa Shoujo:

• Teasing Creators: The devs, especially in regard to Word Of God.
  delta: We’ve also been known to troll, lie, change our mind, and make stuff up on the spot, so good luck with that.

The school featured in the game is actually a real school called Brown University. Pictures are here: http://bit.ly/A0tTUH

• Plot With Porn: The full game has the option to skip the H-scenes. It is still recommended for +18 though.
  • Porn With Plot: You will miss important plot and character development if you skip the H-scenes.

• Intentionally Awkward Title: If you speak Japanese, anyway. “Disability” isn’t really an accurate translation of “katawa”; “crippled” or even “deformed” is closer, and the term is just about as offensive as that would imply. The developers are well aware of this, but did not and will not change it for multiple reasons.
  • Katawa is a word prohibited from broadcast on Japanese TV and radio. It’s that bad.
  • To put it another way, another translation of Katawa Shoujo would be “Gimp Chicks”.

The absolute first thing I have to say about it is that the PV is VERY misleading. Secondly, the description and title are a bit misleading. Judging by what we see, one would be forgiven for assuming it is another slice of life anime with some craaaaaazzzy situations that we have NEVER seen before (and by never I mean every other slice of life anime did so.) And third, I cannot get the image to post.

But, if anything, you should watch the first episode. I gave it a chance, and it ended up getting awarded for being much better than expected (and I would have given it anime of the year 2011 had I though to have an anime and a manga award. Hindsight is 20/20.)

The first episode starts with a girl with a wind up handle in her back running down the street. Fine, only a little bit out of the ordinary. Then she runs into a guy, as she can’t stop in time. Been there, done that more times than I care to count. Then there is an explosion, with a tokeshi, an akabeko, and a salmon fillet flying through the air. I did NOT see that coming.

Next, we get introduced to two of the main characters, high school girls by the name of Aioi and Mio. Aioi is subsequently struck in the head by the objects. After the second item hits, she remarks that she is lucky that at least no raw meat hit her in the head. Three guesses as to what hits her next.

Wikipedia has the best plot description there is, so enjoy it: “The series follows the lives of a group of high school students and their school. Various oddities and absurdities abound, such as a robotic girl made by a scientist who is an eight-year-old girl, a boy who rides a goat to school with his butler, a girl who can procure various guns out of thin air, a cat that can speak and a principal who has wrestled a deer. Despite its bizarre settings and characters, the students still lead normal lives.”

Well, the last sentence isn’t ENTIRELY true. Many, many semblances of normality appear, but with the absurdity of the series, even some things that are quite common become wholly original and amusing.

The weird thing is, I have evry little to say about Nichijou, apart from I spent most of the time being highly amused by it, and not in a negative way. It is really genuinely GOOD. And to be honest, I don’t say that easily or often.

If you like somehting that is more romance or action or basic slice of life, this will not be for you. If you like seeing genre lines blurred and reality slightly twisted into the comically absurd, then this is for you.

I would honestly like to say more, but I am watching it again for around the third time, and I would rather go back to that. Also, saying any more, while it would all be complementing it on everything it had done and discussing it all, it is genuinely good enough that I do NOT want to spoil ANY of the plot if possible. And yes, there is an underlying plot that ties together all the separate stories and characters.

I will admit that I was going to review this earlier on, but I do not like to review series that are ongoing (until a certain point) as they can take a sudden rise or fall in quality, and I don’t want to say a series is the best ever if it goes and undoes everything in the next episode.

Afterthought: While the girls in the show all wear very short skirts for school, there are absolutely no pantyshots. Finally, a mature series that doesn’t use its high school girls bodies to sell itself.

Score: 5/5 very good

Pros: One of the best and most amusing animes I have ever seen. Also, it DOESN’T sexualize its characters.

Cons: most people do not enjoy genre blurring, they like their slice of life to be only slice of life, not comically absurd slice of life

What you should do: it is on crunchyroll, and it  is free. Go and watch it. I sincerely doubt you will not enjoy it.

When a prisoner with only a few months left on his sentence breaks out, the Elric brothers set out to track him down. Their search leads them to Table City, a city on the border of Amestris and Creta. When the pair saves a young alchemist named Julia from the escaped prisoner they get caught up in a rebellion to restore the nation of Milos to its former glory.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos follows in the footsteps of movies like Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Trigun: Badlands Rumble. All three are movies for series that had endings that would be hard to follow with a sequel, so they end up being random filler that takes place sometime during the series itself. This means the movie has no bearing, and really no connection at all, to the actual story from the series.

The movie really goes out of its way to hammer this point home by practically taking place in another country and having next to none of the major characters from the series returning. Winry is there, but all she does is worry about Ed, then fixes his arm. Mustang is there, but he just reads documents most of the time and kills a couple chimera’s offscreen. Hawkeye is there, but all she does is shoot a gun out of a guys hand towards the end of the movie. Aside from Ed and Al, no characters from the series really participate in the story.

Instead the story is centred around all new characters. Of the new characters, only Julia and her brother are really given any amount of backstory, with everyone else just kind of doing their thing, usually until they die. Julia, the main character of the story, is the daughter of two alchemy researchers who were killed when she was young. She lives with the other Milosians in a valley underneath Table City, helping with the rebellion to retake the land that used to be theirs. There’s not much to say about the villains, though truthfully the movie doesn’t even have a villain until the climax when one reveals itself, and then another one reveals itself with about 20 minutes left in the movie. Neither one has a real goal. The second one is angry and wants to destroy everything, and the first is just kind of a prick I guess.

The actual story is pretty straightforward stuff. There are two groups, the Milosians and the corrupt Amestris military in Table City, who want to get the power of a Philospher’s Stone (which is known by another name in Milosian mythology but it escapes me at the moment) for their own reasons. The Milosians want it so they can reestablish the nation of Milos, and the Amestris military wants it for no established reason. It’s a Philosopher’s Stone, so why wouldn’t they want it I guess? Ed and Al, knowing how a Philosopher’s Stone is made, are intent on stopping anyone from trying to make one. Stuff happens, plots are twisted, and ultimately the crisis is averted and nothing substantial has changed in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s a 90 minute filler episode, essentially.

The movie does pull off some noteworthy things though. First of all, there’s not a single short joke in the entire movie, which is great because those are tired and played out. There are also no points where someone mistakes Al for being the Fullmetal Alchemist due to his armour. The movie actually handles all of its comedy better than Brotherhood could ever hope to. Most of the humour comes from visual gags that are never explicitly called out and are just there for you to enjoy. As opposed to Brotherhood, which takes its gags, waves them in front of the camera and shouts, “SEE THIS? IT’S WACKY!” The movie does slightly falter at the very beginning, where it has the eye-roll inducing title drop scene. You know the one, it’s in every Fullmetal Alchemist animated thing. Ed’s shirt and/or pants get torn by bad guy, bad guy sees Ed’s automail arm/leg and says, “Automail limbs… you’re… the Fullmetal Alchemist!”

A big change between this movie and the previous two series is a dramatic change in artstyle. People were complaining about this when the first trailer appeared, because people are stupid. The change in style comes from the new director Kazuya Murata, who has previously directed episodes of Code Geass and Eureka Seven, among other things. I honestly prefer his style over the previous series. It does have some goofy looking attempts at walking and running, but during fight scenes the loose style allows for more stylish looking action. The only times it really suffers are when characters are far away, where they tend to lose most of their detail. I’ve seen it described as cheap and ugly, but I think it looks better than either of the series and lends itself much better to the kind of action you get in Fullmetal Alchemist. But it’s different, and people hate change, so I see where the complaints come from.

Funimation obviously brought back the old cast for returning characters, so I’ll not dwell on those. Suffice to say, they all have a great amount of experience with the characters and handle them as well as they ever have. New additions to the cast are Alexis Tipton as Julia Chrichton and Matthew Mercer as Ashley Chrichton, both of whom give good performances, though neither role is particularly challenging. Julia has her share of emotional scenes, and Alexis Tipton handles them great, but this isn’t the kind of role that’s really going to draw out a great performance. Mathew Mercer doesn’t really get a chance to shine as Ashley until the climax of the film since the character is fairly calm and composed most of the time, but again he gives as good a performance as is necessary for a fairly shallow character. Patrick Seitz also shows up as the villain near the end and shouts about being angry and wanting to destroy the world for 20 minutes, and he does as good a job as anyone could really.

If what you love about Fullmetal Alchemist was the emotional captivating story, you’re probably going to be disappointed with Sacred Star of Milos. It has none of the engaging story and is basically just a 90 minute filler episode. But if all you want to see is your favourite Fullmetal Alchemist characters (assuming your favourite characters are Ed and Al and no one else) going on another adventure, it’s a fine movie. It may not be emotionally engaging in any way, but it is a nice last hurrah for the franchise.

It’s better than Conqueror of Shamballa at least.

Score: 4/5

Redline: the biggest and most deadly racing tournament in the universe. Only held once every five years, everyone wants to stake their claim to fame – including JP, a reckless daredevil driver oblivious to speed limits with his ultra-customized car. Meanwhile, organized crime and militaristic governments want to leverage the race to their own ends. Amongst the other elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the alluring Sonoshee – but will she prove his undoing, or can a high-speed romance survive a mass destruction race?

_____________________________________________________________

Plot:

As of a fan of auto racing (it is right up there with anime and video games for me) watching Redline is a no brainer.  It is no surprise to hear that it got a lot of praise all over the internet.  So is the show worth all of the hype it gets, or does it just blow up on the starting line?  The short answer to this question is yes it is worth all the hype it gets.  Of course, the short answer is not going to work here so let me get to the longer reason why this is awesome.

What makes Redline so great is that has such broad range appeal to all types of anime fans.  From the hardest of hardcore, to the newest fans just getting into anime there is something for just about every type of fan to like in Redline.  Even those not into anime would be able to enjoy what Redline brings to the table.  There is no otaku pandering, no “check list” material, and no meta references that you have to be some super anime fan to understand.  It is just over the top excitement when the racing happens and it would not be as enjoyable any other way.

That is not to say that Redline is not without its faults.  If you are looking for something that has a long navel gazing looking at the psyche of people who drive racecars then look somewhere else.  This is not some super character study or deconstruction of the street racing.  This is mostly a focus on the racing and as such, there is not much in terms of character development.  We do learn about some of the backstory about JP like why he got into racing some of his troubled past.  We also get to know Sonoshee and some of her backstory during the film.  Though considering the pace that the film has spending a lot of time on character development could have potentially messed the pacing as a whole.

Art and Animation

Created by Madhouse the movie looks like nothing else out there that has come before it.  The character designs are unique and it shows a lot of western influence not that it is a bad thing to have.  The colors are bright when the need to be and the colors are dull when they need to be as well.  The racing animation is in one word awesome.  The animation is fluid and outright amazing looking considering that CG was not used at any part of the film this is impressive in its own right.  None of the races loses their pop and they are exciting from start to finish.

In a surprising sense, there is a little bit of fanservice present here, but none of it really takes away from any of the scenes that it is present it.  This is how you put fanserivce in a film and not have it take away from the scenes present.  The character designs are unique and have a Western flair added to them.  There is no moe, and the characters are easily recognizable from one another.

Music and Audio

The music in Redline is a mix of different styles of music most of it being techno which depending on how you feel techno music.  If you enjoy techno music, it will be pleasing to your ears.  Well if you do not care for it, then you will probably not want enjoy it.

Bang Zoom produced the English dub for Redline and it does not sound that bad.  Anybody who is used to listening English dubs that come out of Bang Zoom should be able to recognize many of the voices actors and actresses used in the dub.  Patrick Seitz gives JP his voice for the English dub and does a comparable job to his Japanese counterpart Takuya Kimura (who is a member of SMAP).  Michelle Ruff also does a great job with her role as Sonoshee and it about on par with her Japanese counterpart Yuu Aoi.  Both the English and Japanese dubs are great so listening to either is not going to make your ears bleed.

Final Thoughts:

Redline is something that EVERY anime fan should watch at least once in their lifetime.  If you had to describe Redline to someone who does not watch, anime the easiest way to describe this movie would be “Think of Wacky Races but on tons of crack and turn it up to eleven”.  Sure, it may not be the deepest film out there, but with a film like this who cares if it is deep or not.  It is visual candy at its finest and such a thrill to watch.

Score: 5/5

Pros: Great English and Japanese dub, visually excellent, all around amazing

Cons: Not that deep of a film, not much in the character development department

Redline BD is available from RightStuf

The DVD version is also available

EVA is regarded as a good series and a definitive mecha series. However, if this is the definitive or a definitive mecha series, I feel sorry for the genre.

Plot: The plot evolves around a boy named shinji, who is called upon to pilot a giant robot called EVA. He meets his father, who ignores him and treats their relationship as purely business and tries to get shinji to stand on his own two feet, which is something shinji continually tries to avoid doing. Gendo, shinji’s father, prefers to spend time with ayanami rei, an emotionless 14 year old girl who spends a lot of time being naked. Fanservice that they attempt to justify through her emotionless character-she simply doesn’t care about being naked.

Of course, it is later revealed that she is some sort of science creation and there are many clone bodies of her (which a couple other characters destroy) so it stands to reason that the big boss of the blace (gendo) would spend more time with rei-given she is basically an artificial creation, they basically need to constantly moniter her. Given how much it costs to make a clone of a simple animal, and they have a giant fluid-filled tank full of rei clones, it would also to be to ensure nothing happens to what amounts to a really expensive body.

Either way, the series constantly pulls off slight sexual innuendo and suggestive themes, some of which are very subtle and very freudian.

I would try to explain the plot, but it is a jumbled mass of conspiracy theories and twisted judeo-christian ideas. But, it is something about these angels are tryng to come into contact with some giant thing nailed to a cross and cause something, but they stop it by fighting the angels with these gian trobots that are actually made from the crucified thing, but one of the robots turns into an angel…and something about a giant spear in space and a computer that is called the magii and…

If you can actually make sense of the plot that doesn’t consist of shinji whining about how he isn’t loved enough and how his dad doesn’t pay enough attention to him and how his mother died and how terrible his life is. Given how he either has incurable chronic depression, or is just a really whiny kid, by the second time he tries to run away, but lacks the balls TO GO THROUGH WITH ANYTHING, your opinion would be to prescribe the kid some heavy duty drugs, or a bullet through the skull. He is literally that hateful and annoying. Maybe they were trying to do the young teen confused about his life and unsure of what to do and trying to find his path in all this, but it was done in the same way EVA does everything else-overtly heavy-handed to the point of distaste.

Let’s pick on it some more. The EVAs are giant robots it seems, with control areas filled with fluid that allows them to breathe. Fair enough. It’s called Perflourocarbon, and it is an existing technology that can be used for oxygenation, drug delivery, and other applications, but it still quite experimental. It WORKS, but it has a lot of drawbacks, and is best used for medical treatments and, potentially, deep sea diving. Oh, and it isn’t a pleasant thing either-your body does not have enough strength to breathe the fluid, so mechanical pumps need to force the fluid through your lungs. SO, basically, he would have been hooked up to a tube running down his windpipe. Also, even without that, because of the density of the fluid and the difficulty that your body has moving it into and out of your lungs, speech is impossible. So all those scenes with them speaking inside the robots? Yeah, couldn’t happen. However, as it is only once that the fluid appears, it seems more like the author simply forgot about that.

Even more abuse is on the way. Okay, they wear these neural links and have this neural linkage to the EVAs, and yet they control them through hand controls, and presumably, foot controls, as well as what looks like laserdiscs mounted on the side of the chair (for if they can’t continue to control the EVA.) Okay, so basically, they control the EVA through a closed loop servo system. So why does it need a neural interface when they don’t use neural controls? It’s as if an R/C car also had you wear headphones, despite that the headphones simply have no use.

Right, let’s harp on the EVAs some more. Ignoring the square/cube law for simple rule of cool, the EVAs are powered by giant electrical cords. Fair enough. But, they have batteries that power the EVAs for 30 seconds, then the EVA shuts down if it hasn’t reconnected to the power supply by then. However, later on, shinji begs and pleads with the EVA to move, despite it being out of battery. Then it gets up and allows him to continue fighting. So, really, all the other faff about the power cords wasn’t really needed, was it? Oh, and then it is revealed that the EVAs are essentially biological organisms and the armor contains their power. SO, when the armor power runs out, then the biological should have immediately taken over. If the electricity powers it all, well, organics don’t respond well to electricity (organics respond to electricity powering them by dieing.) Okay, so the armor keeps the EVA from actually using all of its power, so when the battery runs out, the EVA should have emerged immediately. Not to mention, as organic lifeforms cannot be powered by electricity, the EVA would have required a constant intake of nutrients and a constant removal of waste products.

Right, I’m calling an end to that bit of well-deserved nitpicking. But I still have more. NGE is a definitive work, which gave us a lot to be thankful for in manga and anime. It gave us the Rei Ayanami character type, an emotionless young teen girl with pastel hair, and it gave us the depressed introvert hero who has to have a good cry before he maybe, just possibly, goes out to kick ass and take names.*

Or, in other words, it gave everyone character types who fit in well in NGE, but are horrible elsewhere. All manga and anime fans who read and watch other genres get to enjoy the aftertaste of a series that constantly complains about how everything is horrible, despite the actions of others are actually to help it or in its best interests. It’s that pre-teen who listens to depressing music and cuts themselves and complains about their parents, despite the fact their parents are trying to help them.

Score: 3/5 not bad

Pros: it is interesting. You will have more fun trying to figure out what exactly is going on than actually following the impossible story

Cons: characters are whiny to the extent even the most devout pacifist would want to kill them-and would enjoy killing them. EVERYTHING about the story is heavy handed to an extent that nothing needs to be. The judeo-christian antics are horribly convoluted and unfollowable (to the extent one wonders if the author even follows it or simply makes it up as they go along) and seem to be THE sole plot point. Not to mention plenty of INTENTIONAL high-octane nightmare fuel that seems to be there to shock (frequently in a rather freudian way) than as an integral part of the plot. Even worse, those complaints are NOWHERE NEAR then end of the complainable topics, and that ignores any potential nitpicking.

Afterthought: Did I mention I actually enjoy the series? I gave up trying to follow the plot as it makes the Gordian knot look like a straight line. The gainaxing is annoying, but ignoring the penguin love that has no plot relation solves that problem. Also, I generally just try to not think about things like the one girl trying to seduce the much older man…Squick.

Provided you don’t think deeply, or even shallowly about ANYTHING NGE throws at you, it is an enjoyable read.

Plug: I read NGE manga through my local library. Odds are, your local library has a manga section, and may even have anime to rent. Try reading some things there that you haven’t read before, as in doing so, you open your eyes to new genres and help support public libraries. So, yeah, support your local public library and such.

* This bit was mentioned in the very enjoyable book How NOT To Draw Manga. It isn’t very expensive, and will make you a far more educated consumer of Manga and Anime. I highly suggest you pick up a copy.

If Tomoki doesn’t learn to control his impulses around Ikaros and be more careful with his wishes, the chaos will only get crazier. Luckily, even with such a dirty mind, Tomoki’s heart is in the right place. His hands, however, are a completely different story.

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Plot: 

It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows me on twitter that I love ecchi anime and manga.  Ecchi comedies are a dime a dozen in today’s anime industry and 90% of them are similar or damn near the same to other titles in the genre.  At first glance it would seem that Heaven’s Lost Property fits into the mold of a standard ecchi comedy.  We have a normal teenage boy whose hormones are running wild and who like any heterosexual male his age wants to see panties and female underwear.  We have the standard childhood friend who is potential love interest even if she gets annoyed by his perverted antics.

As much as it may have in common with similar shows in the genre the biggest defining aspect here is the comedy with the series.  There are some truly very funny moments littered throughout the series and it is here where the series is shining the brightest.  Episode 2, Episode 4, and Episode 11 feature some of the funniest moments that the series has to offer.

Of course not everything the series has to offer is humorous and this is where the series starts to stumble.  Mixed in with the comedy are some doses of drama which while itself are not a bad thing to have in a series, you cannot expect to switch between humor and drama and have it seem a bit jarring.  Comedy and drama together can be done in a way that works and not do huge flip flops with comedy then all of a sudden start doing drama.  It disrupts the flow of the series and can be off putting.

There is a little bit of character development here and there.  Ikaros tries to be more human as the show goes a long similar to how Chi does so in Chobits but without all the learning how to talk and clothes once self that Chi has to learn.  The male lead Tomoki does get some development in the first episode after his “wish” to rule the world and what comes of it when he does it.  The rest of the cast sadly does not get much if any development at all.  Sohara the Type B tusndere childhood friend of Tomoki sticks with the whole I want to beat him up/ I want him in bed with me thing all throughout the series but does not really to change any of it or to progress their relationship.  I am not going to really talk about the side characters since there is no development with them, and I wish there was some development with the side cast.

Art and Animation:

Well the background art is nothing innovative and the same can be said about the character designs the show looks great in HD.  The colors are bright and look sharp.  There is some CG used during the shows and the CG is done in a way that does not seem jarring to the non CG stuff.  One of the highlights of the CG is the flying panties scenes that appear in episode two and episode four which is the highlight of the CG used in the series.  Not only does it look great it is also funny to watch a bunch of panties go flying in the air.  Chibi character designs are used a lot in this series especially with the male lead that spends most of the time in chibi form.

There are a few action intense scenes in the show and those are animated nicely and are enjoyable to watch.  These types of scenes are used heavily in episode four, episode eight and the last episode of the TV series.

To say there is a bit of fanservice in the series is like saying the ocean is wet.  Being that this is ecchi show at heart there is a lot of fanservice shown in Heaven’s Lost Property.  Expect to see lots of panty shots each episode and females in their underwear.  While bare breasts are shown in the series the girls however do not have any nipples.  The male lead is the only character in the show to have nipples

Sound and Audio:

The OP Ring my Bell is the best the series has to offer music wise which is played by Blue Drop which include Saori Hayami and Hitomi Yoshida.  The ED is a little different in that each episode has a different ED along with different animation which are sung by different people.  The animation usually has to do with each episode that it is for.  The music score during the episodes is standard J-pop music that you can expect in a ecchi series and is pretty forgettable

Funimation did the English dub for the series and for the most part the dub is good.  Greg Ayres provides the voice for Tomoki and does an a great job of emulating the original Japanese voice actor for Tomoki Soichiro Hoshi (you may remember him for giving Kira Yamato his voice in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny).  While most of the English actors do a good job with their roles the only role that I feel was better in the Japanese than English is Ikaros who in Japanese is voiced by Saori Hayami and Brittney Karbowski.  While Brittney is a great voice actress she does not give the same type of performance for this role has her Japanese counterpart Saori Hayami who does a better job with this role.  That is not to say that Brittney’s version of Ikaros is terrible and unlistenable, which is quite the opposite but Saori does a better job.

For the most part the English script is faithful to the original Japanese script.  There are a few rewrites here and there with some things especially in Episode 5 which renames a hot spring but it works in both languages.  There is more profanity in the English script especially with Tomoki who comes off as more of a jerkass in the English version than in the Japanese.

Final Thoughts:

Heaven’s Lost Property is a funny harem ecchi show that does some things to help it stand out amongst an already flooded market.  While the drama does not blend with the comedy well and cast members who do not get much development, it is still one of the funniest shows to come along in the last few seasons.  Heaven’s Lost Property is not for everyone, but those who do will get a fanservice filled comedy that will leave them in tears.

Score: 3/5

Pros: Lots of fanservice, good English dub and Japanese dub, very funny comedy

Cons: Poor musical score, comedy and drama do not mix all that well, not much in the character development department.

Heaven’s Lost Property is available from Right Stuf

The LE version of the series is also available

“The domed city of Romdo is an impenetrable would-be utopia where humans and robots coexist, and everything is under complete government control – or so it appears. While working on a mysterious murder case, Re-l Mayer, a female detective from the Civilian Intelligence Office, receives a foreboding message that something is going to “awaken.” That night, she’s attacked by a deformed super-being… What was this unidentified monster that attacked her, and who was the figure that came in between them? As Re-l attempts to unlock this spiraling mystery, a metaphysical battle cry leads her to the unknown outside world.”

Ergo Proxy has a fetish for being vague. The series’ terminology is rarely defined, and characters often have discussions of vague concepts. Sometimes this makes sense as things need to be obscure for the sake of the story, but most of the time it just gets annoying and tiresome. Certain plot points are also left vague such as an important event that’s essentially skipped when the story jumps from the group just about to return to Romdo after exploring the wasteland, to them being separated in Romdo after some serious shit had gone down. How the group got separated and what actually happened in Romdo is explained through narration. It was so abrupt that I thought I was being faked out (again).

The series also never bothers to fully explain what happened to the world. It’s apparent when we first see outside Romdo that something went horribly wrong and the world was left as a barren wasteland. The closest thing to an explanation are a few snippets snuck in during a quiz show halfway through the series. It ends up being an info-dump surrounded by a completely random unexplained event.There’s actually an interesting backstory here involving the end of the world and a plan to restore it, but the series seemed quite intent on never fully fleshing it out. I would have been totally fine with an entire episode of exposition about what happened to the world to put it in the condition it’s in and how the plans were carried out, but no such luck I suppose.

Something that could have saved the series would be interesting characters, but no luck there either. The main character, or what we’re supposed to believe is the main character, is Re-l Mayer, a girl who dresses all in black, wears too much makeup, and is generally unpleasant to be around. She’s almost completely irrelevant to the plot and I’m not sure why she’s the main character when the story actually revolves around Vincent Law. Vincent is more likeable than Re-l, which is hardly a challenge, but isn’t any more interesting. He has no memories of before he immigrated to Romdo, has a connection to the Proxies, and is in love with Re-l (what man could possibly resist that cold unpleasant personality?) The other major player in the series is Pino, a little robot girl in a bunny suit who just acts cute most of the time, which probably makes her better than the other two at least.

The series also has a problem with completely random episodes that make everything grind to halt, usually for no real purpose. One of these would be the aforementioned gameshow episode. But that episode at least reveals some of the backstory for the series. It may have ground things to a halt for what was a goofy out of place episode, but at least it contributed something. By far the biggest waste of time is the episode about Smile Land. It’s an episode that takes place entirely in a dream of the little girl robot, where a Proxy asks her to prevent the group from going to his dome. And then they don’t go to the dome, and none of the events in the episode are ever brought up again. Hooray.

It wasn’t entirely bad though. The early episodes with Vincent first leaving Romdo and exploring the outside world were actually interesting. Had the series stuck with that and simply been about Vincent surviving after being forced to leave the safety of the dome, it probably would have been pretty good. But once it gets on to the point of heading to Vincent’s original home, and encountering other Proxies, it just gets dull and in the end there’s no payoff for any of it. For all its philosophical ramblings, Ergo Proxy doesn’t really have anything to say and just feels like a waste of time.

The art and animation in Ergo Proxy are as good as they need to be. It’s a show where stand around talking about things. The most actual movement in the series happens whenever there’s a fight with a Proxy. There are a few moments where characters are off model, including a hilarious side view of Re-l’s head in one episode where her face is completely flat. There’s really nothing all that impressive visually, with fight scenes being few and far between and the general setting of the series, the wasteland remains of Earth, being a huge stretch of grey. It’s a dark, drab series where people stand around and talk, so what more can you really expect?

Ergo Proxy is a show drowning in dark sci-fi themes, philosophical meanderings, strange terminology and unlikeable characters. This would hardly be a problem if the show could muster up the ability to be entertaining in any way, but really it’s about as entertaining as watching an amnesiac man wonder about who he really is and how he ended up in his situation. If that sounds like your cup of tea, all the power to you, but all it’s just not for me.

Score: 2/5

Ergo Proxy is out of print but is available on Amazon Instant Video for some reason

As such, I will try to make this review very short, so it will be an amusing contrast to the series as a whole.

Plot: Bleach is about a boy named Ichigo who gains the powers of a death god from a shinigami named Rukia. He then goes on to fight evil spirits called Hollows.

Spoiler plot: Rukia gets kidnapped, and the next 100 or so chapters are spent going to the shinigami realm and rescuing her. Turns out she was going to be executed, but it was in an attempt to gain some sort of super powerful weapon.

The next bit (still spoiler) of plot is where Ichigo goes to the hollow realm and attempts to kill Aizen, the defector from the previous arc, as Aizen wants to destroy the shinigami realm. Several hundred chapters of that (not a joke)  and Ichigo manages to defeat Aizen through the use of a power he learned just a couple chapters before that and loses his power as the effect of his attack/transformation.

Still spoiling the story here. Ichigo somehow regains some memory of his time as a shinigami and a bit of his powers, and some group of people take him in and train his powers back into him.

Bleach is really long, it drags out every fight, and even a fight scene consists of a lot of standing around talking, or explaining to an enemy precisely WHY they fell into a trap. Neither of those things is a good idea.

I actually liked Bleach a little bit. Yeah, it dragged out everything to the limit of human patience, which causes the story to have a VERY slow progression. But when it actually moves, it is interesting and it does engage the reader or viewer.

My beef with Bleach is it gets no respect. Ichigo has that ‘incident’, and it would have been perfect to end the story there as a tale of self sacrifice to save everything. Stories like that have been done a lot, but there was enough interest and attachment to the characters by that point that it would have been a better example of the altruistic story.

It was even written to seem like it was ending the story. I was sitting there thinking ‘It was a bit long, but the ending more than makes up for it. Wait a second, there are more chapters. Uh-oh.’

And that is the thing-it takes a lot of integrity as a creator to be able to give a story a dignified end. And if you do give it a dignified end, it rather ruins the effect of it to continue the story from exactly that point. All those lessons, all that character development, all gone. In the end, nothing was learned, and nothing lost stayed lost.

Bleach would have been better off if it had resumed the story at a later point in Ichigo’s life, say him as an adult, he dies, goes to shinigami realm. They remember him, train him as a shinigami, he slowly regains his abilities and fights hollows and such.

That would have been a more dignified way to resume the story of Bleach, but it wasn’t afforded any dignity. It was put to rest, then the body was immediately dug up and strings tied to its limbs to give it some semblance of life.

Score: 2/5 not good

Pros: cool weapons, cool fight scenes, cool plot, cool characters. It’s fun to read, fun to watch.

Cons: drags out the story a lot of the time. story can’t remain dead-it loses all dignity and respect for the characters it built up, and all those moral lessons (altruism) lose their impact as the story basically turns around and says ‘nevermind’ to teaching anything of potential value.