Video game adoptions are almost always bad due to the studio taking their own twist on the story, taking shortcuts with the production, or just plainly getting things wrong. This applies with anime adopts of video games too. However, over the years some studios are able to get it right and make a show that is not only faithful to the source material but a great show in general. That is what studio AIC ASTA and Aniplex is trying to do with Persona 4 Animation, adoption of one of the best JRPGs from 2009 and still holds a place in most peoples hearts here in Giant bomb. There is a lot of things going for this adoption and I will cover each episode to see how it holds up.
The episode pretty much started off like the game with Yu Narukami (Charlie Tunoku) going about his day in Inaba, going to school, hanging out with Chie and Yosuke, and getting super powers. You know, the usual stuff. The interesting part about the anime when compare to the game is how it is paced. It skip past a lot of build up and heads straight to points in to the story that matter. At times it feels a bit rushed in places but overall its fitting for a series that will run for 25 minutes. Another interesting concept they used in the show was the transition from the game like the calendar and the TV screen. Not only does it remind fans of the game but also a smart way to move the show along and cut to commercial breaks (May be more apparent on Hulu where there are commercials). The last thing that does stick out to fans is the event that Yu gets his Persona, which is much early than in the game. However, it may just be a good idea for Yu to get it early due to the length of time in the episode and leaves us with a good end and set up.
Visually, the show looks glorious with lots of contrast, shading, lighting, and designs. Animation is pretty well done with lots of movements and expression from characters. Music is pretty the game music which are still good and placed in appropriate moments. While those who only listen to the English voices of the characters, it may be a bit hard to get use to the Japanese voices. However, they still do a good job. Yui Horie and Showtaro Morikubo give Chie and Yosuke lots of energy in their performance and while not having a lot of lines, Daisuke Namikawa does a good job as Yu and hopefully does talk a lot more. So far the anime is shaping up to be pretty good but there still more episodes to come and I will continue to cover it. Now if you excuse me, I'll be heading in to the meat dimension. Investigation Team, GO!
Highlights
Always be creepy, IgorOh Chie, why are you so awesome?I wonder how long he'll increase his stats?Kuma! (Teddie's catchphrase in the show and game in Japanese)Don't mess with Yu (Charlie) 97 Comments
Greetings everyone and welcome to my anime post of the fall season. I wanted to spread my anime blogs to this side (Been doing this on AnimeVice for a while) for anyone who is interested in reading them. Now before I begin I would like to take a moment and say that I do not want any negative feedback on anime on here at all. Please leave if you are not going to comment on the series I'm covering or my writing. So now thats out of the way, lets move on.
A new season begins and so does my journey to watch them. As usual I will get a first impression on the first episode of the show and will only watch series that are newly adoptions and not sequels of a show. Keep in mind that this isn’t a full judgment of the series as a whole and only me writing my thoughts down on whether or not the show has potential. So let get started.
Fate/Zero
A prequel to Fate/Stay Night takes us back to the 4th Holy Grail war and the possible events that are set up for the 5th war. The first episode showcases the world of wizards, the motivations that are driving our Master characters, and the conflicts that will come. Even the servants, who are said to be only tools for the masters, are also conflicted with problems of their own. The whole 1 hour long episode is pretty much a huge set up to what to come since not a single moment had action in it. Despite being a prequel, some information may not be understood by new comers but it is a better introduction to the Fate series than Fate/Stay Night. Visuals are pretty incredible with lots of dynamic lightning, bright colors, and designs. So far animation is pretty well done but conceding that most of the episode did not have any real action scenes it little had to judge the whole quality of it. Fate/Zero is shaping up to be an interesting show, both for fans and new comers.
An adult visual novels adaption, sounds great. Yeah, after hearing and watching the show I can confirm that it isn’t anything to write home about. The interesting part that I can find is the female cast are descendants of warriors. In fact the whole school of Kawakami City is famous for its strong dedication of warriors and hold fights to test ones warrior's spirit. This factors in with a group of friends sticking together to fight a new challenger. Sadly it’s hard to watch these fights since the quality of the animation is below average. Visuals are also kinda bland with lot of flat designs and poor coloring. Characters are pretty genetic with the usual archetype of these adult visual novels. I would like to note that this first episode had hardly any fan-service but I don’t expect it to back away from that in the near future. Overall, nothing special and may not hold as the season goes on.
C³ -C Cube-
A “Cursed tools” known as “Worse” contain huge amounts of negative emotions that can manifest into a human consciousness. If allowed to amass more negative feelings, the Worse can become a demon and curse its owner and everyone around him. Sounds interesting but it kinda dismissed when these evil objects turn in to cute young girls. With a few panty shots in the first episode I question if this show was set up for anything besides Fear Kubrick (Tamura Yukari) fooling around with a vacuum cleaner. The first episode only look like an usual comady with a few breast jokes and some silly moments. However, the show promises a lot more conflict with fallen “Worse” that fail to be in control and a organizations that are against these cursed objects. Also the visuals are just stunning with interesting use of abstract coloring and shading. It expected since it is from SILVER LINK, who done BakaTest. I can’t speak too much if this show will go anywhere but I will say that this wasn’t a good first impression.
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon
A light novel-based anime that’s been said to be “impossible” to adapt. Sound like when they said the the Watchmen could be a movie. Unlike the Watchmen movie, which I found to be a good adapt, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon does look too good which I question if the novel was any good at all? The idea is that in the future people left earth and lived in a place called “Tenjo”. However, war broke out and many return to earth where most places are inhabitable except Shinshu area. Since it can’t hold too many people, they form "Juso Sekai", a parallel world and start to rebuild Tenjo using reproduction of the history from B.C. 10,000. When the reproduction proceeds to A.D. 1413, a war breaks out in Shinshu and Juso Sekai falls onto the original world. From there the People in Shinshu surrender and the land is divided by the invaders from Juso Sekai. However, when they tried to reproduction of history again, a rumor of apocalypse begins to spread the world. Interesting concept but the first episode doesn't really go in to any of this and instead what we got is poor fight scenes, girls in skintight clothing, very bad humor, and characters lacking any intelligences. Visuals are pretty bland and while animation is actually pretty good, even in the fight scenes, the designs look really off. A very bad first impression of something that may lead in to something deep but I just can’t see that happening.
HUNTER x HUNTER
Watching HUNTER x HUNTER reminds me of my Saturday morning animes of simple story-lines, lots of high flying action, and funny characters. It also something I’m too old for and in a way makes it little hard to enjoy since it is targeted to people younger than me. Despite that it is a well made show with a briskly paced, a nice coming of age story, nice visuals, and a colorful cast of characters. While it isn’t for me anymore, it is a perfect show for a more younger audience.
"Are you my master?" never change Saber :DWant a soda from a robot?Will we ever solve this rubix cube?Yeah, why don't you push your breast up lady!Thats a nice hat kid. 24 Comments
2010 showed off some promising things and I would like to list them off
The Japanese still got it. Japan is still trying their best to appeal to the west. Some try a little too hard and end up falling apart. However, many studios are making some smart move.
Atlus continues to bring their quality produces by licensing over other studio's games like 3D Dot Game Heroes from FromSoft, Zeno Clash from ACE Team, and a whole bunch more, while releasing their own heavy hitters like Persona 3 Portable, Trauma Team, Strange Journey, and Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City.
PlatinumGames may just show what the future of Japanese games are like by truly blending Western game styles with Japanese craziness. Bayonetta offers the similar combat style of Devil May Cry but makes it a whole lot easier to get in to while Vanquish is a 3rd person cover base shooter that moves as smooth as butter and makes gears look really slow.
Open worlds opened my mind. Out of all of the games I played this year, the ones that I really enjoyed were the open world games, which were Fallout New Vegas and Red Dead Redemption. Red Dead offer up a interesting story, characters, a wonderful western setting, and gameplay structure that Rockstar may use again in their future releases. New Vegas, while broken in many areas, still offer up the great Fallout experience will a better level balance, better companion controls, great characters, better story structure, and lots to do and ways to do them.
Running out of HD space because of DLC This year I brought more DLC than usual due to the creativity they bring. Double Fine's Costume Quest showed the comedic style of the team with a small game. While gameplay is pretty basic RPG but what I paid for was the writing. After Burner Climax, enough said. LIMBO is a example of, due I say it, gaming as art. The art, the gameplay structure, the sound, and the questioning nature of the story, allowing people to make up what they feel as to what is going on.
A true Gentlemen leaves no puzzle unsolved My mind has never been twisted up so much till Picross 3D came along. Hours of tapping blocks and forming different creations through the uses of logic. Also continuing the wonderful adventures of Professor Layton and Luke Triton in the Unwound Future. Nothing much to say about it only because it still the same great puzzle structure and heart-warming story.
So in what way did 2010 treat you in your gaming ways?
For the people are want a official word that Atlus is and will continue to live on after their merger with cell phone company, Index, a quote from Shinichi Suzuki, the president and CEO of Atlus USA, has this to say:
"We want to assure our fans and affiliates that Atlus remains in operation and will continue, as always, to support our beloved community with the finest quality game experiences possible," Suzuki said. "The Atlus-Index merger allows us to achieve greater synergy among the Index group companies and further strengthens the foundation of Atlus, both in Japan and here in the United States."
From here I expect Atlus to not only continue doing what it does best but also have the ability to further their ideas given that they are willing to push for HD games with their first release, Catherine, coming this winter in Japan.
Article: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/23972 Update: More proof of the email
Analysts, Michael Pachter, believes that you and other Call of duty player are willing to accept a pay to play plan.
I am calling BS on this. Are millions really going to throw their money out for a FPS? The problem with this is that this goes for one game and a game that doesn't run on a server like MMOs do. I also don't see where in a chart or data that says people are willing to pay anything for a game besides the sales of map packs (not sure of the numbers) but their also not thinking about people's feelings on this.
I don't get it. It was a feature that I completely overlooked and felt that I would never need to use it. Even when Sony said that it was going to get rid of it I looked away knowing that it wont effect me. However, many others are contently complaining about the removal of the Other OS feature, even going as far as suing sony for it: http://gamer.blorge.com/2010/04/29/sony-sued-over-other-os-removal-from-ps3/ I don't see how important this 'Other OS' feature was as I seen reports of it being slow and almost useless (Useless when you have a PC with you). What do you guys think?
Just recently I been playing Persona for the PSP since 2 months ago and haven't finish it yet. You could say that the reason why I haven't finished it is that I only played it in small section due to its portability since it is on the PSP. That is true but the real reason why I haven't finished it is that I been doing nothing but leveling up my characters and Personas. I have done that in many RPGs like Persona 4, the tales games and even Fallout 3. Many players are turnoff by this type of game playing style but I tend to enjoy it and don't have a confirm reason why I like it. Maybe its the enjoyment of getting to the next level or trying to get a new ability or that the combat is really fun to do that all I want to do is grind.
A few hours ago I just found out about the PS3 error problem. Reports from Sony says that the cause is from a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system and they will try to fix the problem in around 24 hours. For some reason people are raging that this is a scam to get everyone to buy PS3 slims if Sony is unable to fix the problem. What is with all of the Sony hate and distrust of the company? Since day one of the console release people had some type of a problem with the system, nitpicking every single problem that came across it. After over 4 years now we should have a change of heart but no. The problem I have with these rumors of Sony scamming us is that there is no evidence to it. It was weird that the fat PS3 stop working because of a bug in the clock functionality but that doesn't really mean Sony planned to happen. We should all think carefully about this and think rational about this.
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