A New Beginning

Hello folks. I want to start off by saying Happy Holidays to any of you that celebrate them and all that jazz. Some big news for those of you who follow us at this blog, we are officially moving to a new domain, CTANCast.com. While our activities will continue, they will no longer continue here, so come join us at the new address!

Jeremiah - Episode 12

So another long hiatus kept us away from recording more episodes, we are back with Episode 12 of the CTANCast, entitled Jeremiah! This is our holiday edition, so sit back and enjoy!

Here's what's on the plate this time:

Shoujo Kakumei Utena! + RING!

More crime on the streets!

Jeremiah!

So on this episode of Jeremiah, Tom and I came back with a bang. I reviewed a Revolution! Well, actually, just Revolutionary Girl Utena. Tom took a look at Saints Row 3, the game he's been hyping up for months! Did it live up to his standards?! Find out on our show. Some news and holiday salutations make the episode a whole. So take a listen and enjoy! Could be the last episode of this year!



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Jules - Episode 11

Yeah, so we had this episode recorded like 5 days ago and edited like 4 days ago, but due to someone's laziness (mainly mine), it's not up until today. Sorry! Also to make note, during recording, you'll hear some problems with my mic during my review and so I must apologize for that, there was nothing we could really do to fix it. Other than that, I'm not sorry for anything! Enjoy the cast.

Here's what's on the plate this time:

Some wicked news!

Zombies! AHHHHH!

Take a picture, it lasts longer!

So on this episode of Jules, we talked quite a bit of news especially those concerning the merger of FUNimation and Niconico and even bigger, the VIZ Manga news of starting up a new digital magazine, Shonen Jump Alpha. We also did our little segment on Shit Otaku Say, which comes to us indirectly from Colony Drop, so please go check them out if you like anime and stuff.

Tom reviewed a little PSN game called Dead Nation, while I discussed the pretty popular (even in Japan) anime, Nodame Cantabile. Also mentioned on the podcast was the fact that pre-orders for Redline are now available at Rightstuf.com so don't delay and get your now!



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Emilio - Episode 10

Well, after an incredibly long break from our podcasting routine, Tom and I are back with a brand new episode of the CTANCast. Plenty of laughs to be had so I hope you all enjoy and hopefully we'll get back to a more regular recording schedule.

Here's what's on the plate this time:

That's some whacked out otaku shit!

It's not weird! At least not yet!

Those rascally plumbers from NY are here to unclog your toilet!

On this episode of Emilio, we have some catching up to do. We discussed a good bit of what we've done in our "spare" time as well as me managing to make a mistake of calling Naruto's seiyuu a he! See if YOU can catch it! I introduced a brand new segment on our show, which will probably not be on every episode, but every now and again, called Shit Otaku Say. It's brought to you fully by a website of the same name, which is an offshoot of the really good website, Colony Drop. CD has some fantastic editorial pieces written by grizzled Otaku veterans so give them a look see.

We then go on to discuss some anime and video games. I took a look at a Summer 2011 11 episode noitaminA block anime, Usagi Drop, while Tom delved deep into the toilets of Bowser with his look at Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.

We wrapped up the show with some discussion of the release of Mardock Scramble and delay of the Redline release. I also took a few moments to talk about a little piece posted on Anime News Network called "The Running Man", which I encourage all to go check out. So a lot happening on this episode of Emilio, give it a listen!



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Jimmy - Episode 9

As I said last week, Stewart had it coming and got killed by his greed for string cheese. But that just means that there's now room for our new show, Jimmy.

Here's what's on the plate this time:

There's no way our podcast could be this cute!

About time!

I got nothing...

On this episode of Jimmy, Tom and I discussed a couple of news topics, one of which being that Hunter x Hunter was rumored to be getting a new anime season and earlier today, that news was actually confirmed at Anime News Network. For those of you that have been waiting for years for a new season, rejoice! It's coming this fall apparently. In other news, at San Diego Comic Con, which is coming to and end today, FUNimation announced the Blu Ray release of Dragonball Z proper; something we will begrudgingly discuss. Also on the cast, Tom finally finished the epic game, LA Noire and gives us a very comprehensive review of said game. I on the other hand, look at an often overlooked little piece of anime from 2009, titled RideBack. Now that that's done, time to go watch Captain America! Enjoy the podcast!




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Stewart - Episode 8

Alright, Gloria's out, and Stewart's in, but for how long will he last? After a three week hiatus, the rude dudes with attitude from CTANCast are back with a bang.

This following show is about some of the things that delayed us:

This is Madness!

Tabletop Booty and Cast

Da Hood

Tom and I look at the weekend that was July 8th through the 10th, at ConnectiCon 2011. I do a small review of a little known work to most fans, Trava: Fist Planet, a short OVA and predecessor to Redline the new anime film from Madhouse. And Tom nicely wraps things up with his review of Saints Row 2... That's right, he's lied to us again, no LA Noire yet! Send him e-mails to complain! Anyway, enjoy the show, which is now 30% longer... at least for this week.



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Gloria - Episode 7

So you think you can dance? Gloria sure does. Welcome to the first episode of Gloria, yet another trial into a decent name... Let's see how this one fares. Doug was a total failure.

This show is about:

Young PeroPero

Regal PeroPero

Tom's hero, Link... He's grown old, no?

We talk some news here as usual, though I forgot to mention the coolness that Makoto Shinkai will be attending Otakon as a guest! For those of you not in the know, he's the dude that single handedly made Hoshi no Koe (Voices of a Distant Star) and more recently, 5 Centimeters Per Second. So if you're in the area, check him out!
Tom goes into his old skool drawer and digs out an old N64 classic that's been re-released for the 3DS. Link was back in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
I discuss and compare the manga and anime for Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (Kare Kano) aka His and Her Circumstances.
And of course a lot more fun along the way. So enjoy!

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Doug - Episode 6

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Doug. From the same people that brought you Randy, Stanley, and many others! Another great show to add to our repertoire!

This show is about:

Tom's unnatural love for Kujibiki Unbalance

Vitaliy's love of taking images in the dark, with Genshiken.

In this episode, Vitaliy discussed the 2004-2007 anime Genshiken, the show for otaku, by otaku. While Tom continued his line of video gaming with a little gem from just a few weeks ago, Terraria, which you can pick up on Steam. We sprinkled in a little news and flavor for a totally volatile concoction, known as Doug. Enjoy!

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Randy - Episode 5

Welcome back to Randy? Are you confused? Don't be, just listen to our latest episode of the podcast and enjoy. This show is dedicated to passing of one of the legends of the squared circle, one "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Here he is, bringing us an elbow from the heavens and stopping the rapture. Thank you Randy.

In this episode we discussed quite a bit of news and reviewed Left 4 Dead as well as a 1990s OVA, Golden Boy. We also discussed the different anime/manga genres and hopefully dropped some knowledge on you.

PS - I mentioned in the episode the New York Asian Film Festival, which will actually be taking place from July 1st through the 14th. Click on the link there for further information as well as the full lineup of events to come.

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No episode this week

There will be no episode this week. No excuses, but I thought I should let you know. Look for the next episode next week at this time.

Stanley - Episode 4

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Stanley? Are you confused? Don't be, just listen to our latest episode of the podcast and enjoy. If that's not enough, look at the image below to see what the show is about!

That's right, that is sexy ol' me and this week on the show I discussed the shonen show, Deadman Wonderland, or as I like to call it, Running Man the anime. Tom talked about a little game called Red Dead Redemption, whose poster I'm standing next to! Finally, to go for the KO, I finished off the episode with a little discussion of the seinen work, Hana-Saku Iroha. Give it a shot, you may be amused.

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CTANCast Episode 3 - Billy and more!

So we're back again, after taking a week off for personal matters, to bring you the third exciting installment of our new podcast, "Can't Think of A Name...Cast". This week's episode features a little bit of a different format, where both Tom (Gilmorne) and I (Vitaliy aka Gokuu) decided to review numerous shows and video games respectively. Two each to be precise. After experiencing a few issues with our recording software, Audacity, we had to cut down the episode one review short. And for that we apologize. As a gift to our fans, for this travesty, I have included an image of Tom, doing what he does best.

In this episode we reviewed some Magicka for the soul, a little bit of [C]-Control, and some Scott Pilgrim vs. The World... the Game, for good measure. So check it out!

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As a special bonus... due to the fact that I had to omit my review of a certain show called Blue Exorcist, I will do a little written review here on the site today.

Well, you may wonder, what makes a show about exorcism so amazing or unique? Perhaps nothing. So going into this, I wasn't really expecting much, just your run of the mill typical shonen show. And while it didn't particularly prove to be too much more than just that, what it happened to do with its shonen formula was just good enough for me.

Let's talk a little bit about the plot of the episode, since this is the first episode overall. In the first episode we are introduced to our protagonist, Rin Okumura who's a Class A troublemaker, or so you think initially, until you figure out that he's always just thrown into situations where he has to commit acts of violence, even if they are in a noble cause.
So Rin is taking care of some "bullies", who seem to be shooting crossbows at pigeons in a park. I'd say that's noble enough, but he gets a great lecture about it from his dad, a man who's a priest in a church. At this point we are also introduced to his brother, Yukio, who is a model student and human being in general. Yukio is about to leave to a university called True Cross University with the ultimate goal of becoming a doctor, something that Rin could only dream of.
Shortly thereafter we also discover that his dad is an exorcist. A plot point we find out when Rin, on his way to a part-time job interview, oversees his father talking to a woman with her young daughter.
There are some "hilarious" hijinks at his job application where he gets hired and almost promptly fired for, again, doing a noble thing by helping the same girl whom he saw at the church earlier. And it was at this point that we were introduced to the demons, who know doubt will be the enemy to Rin throughout the story.
After being grounded by his father for the debacle at his interview, Rin meets up with the same bully he had beat up very early on in the episode. Except this time, the bully has come with a vengeance.
Now I won't go into great detail as to what happens in the rest of the episode, since I'd encourage you guys to go see it for yourselves. What I will say is that you basically find out that Rin is the son of Satan and a human female and that he has awoken! What does that mean? You'll have to watch successive episodes to find out... or read the manga.

THE GOOD
The animation in this show is very good. The studio A-1 Pictures is a decent one that created some memorable shows such as Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup), Working!! (Wagnaria!!), and probably most popularly Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler). The art style isn't anything incredibly original or unique, but it is sleek and nicely done and I can tell that the fight sequences in this show will be great, as showcased by a few parts of the first episode.
Besides the animation, the characters were likeable overall and I'm interested to see how the story develops and where it goes from here.

THE BAD
As mentioned before, the show is not very original. Same overused shonen cliches still exist in this one, so if you're sick and tired of those, the show is probably not for you. The music is not really noticeable either. It didn't add anything to the story nor did it subtract from it, so that's a wash in general.

THE UGLY
Well... I just needed to finish that cliche there... there wasn't anything truly ugly in this show and the fact that our main character will be using a katana, from the glimpse we got of one, makes me a bit excited.

So in conclusion, this show is your run of the mill shonen fighting show, but it looks nice and there are katanas in it. You be the judge and go check it out! It's available for streaming from a number of sources.

Personally, I'll give it a few more episodes to see where it goes.

CTANCast Episode 2 - Daniel

Hey guys, while initially off to a slow start, we're picking up steam and getting ready to roll on with another great episode of the Can't Think of A Name...Cast. This time, Tom (aka Gilmorne) takes a look at the brand new released game, the long awaited sequel to the original, Portal 2.



During the weekend of the recording of this podcast, I had gone down to Boston to participate in the anime gathering known as Anime Boston 2011. Listen to my assessment of the convention and my complete thoughts on it.

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Can't Think of A Name...Cast Episode 1

Hey guys, I know it's been forever since we've actually updated the page, but today it's with some actual new content! Here is the brand new podcast that myself and Gilmorne have been putting together.



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Animation Runner Kuromi (OVA 1 & 2) Review

BACK STORY:
'Animation Runner Kuromi' is a small two episode OVA for which the episodes one and two were created in 2001 and 2004 respectively. It was directed by Akitaro Daichi, who most people would only recognize through some of his other works such as 'Kodomo no Omocha' (known as Kodocha in the US), where he was one of three directors, 'Sexy Commando', as well as 'Jubei-chan' and its sequel, 'Now and Then, Here and There', and 'Fruits Basket', amongst a few other very good shows. Most recently he worked on 'Bokura ga Ita', but today we're not talking about his other works, though I may be inclined to take a look at some of them at a later point. Today we are looking at the aforementioned two part OVA, Animation Runner Kuromi, which, while being very low key and not particularly popular, was actually an interesting work to look at. So let's get to it without further delay.

SUMMARY:
As I've stated before, the OVA is two standalone episodes, which you could watch by themselves without ever knowing anything about the show previously. In episode one, we are introduced to highly energetic animation school graduate, Mikiko Oguro, who quickly becomes nicknamed Kuromi by the cast. Her interest in animation stems from her childhood days of watching a show named Luis Monde III. So, she joins a small animation studio called Studio Petit and on her first day there gets thrown into the job without much knowledge of what she has to do. I won't describe the details to you, as you can iron them out for yourselves by watching. She becomes an 'Animation Runner' so to say, and throughout the first episode you get a very good idea of why her position is known as that. The first episode's main plot is the work on a fictional anime that Studio Petit is producing, called 'Time Journeys', however it's not going to be so easy because Kuromi's job becomes that of a motivational speaker, as she is forced to try to pull together all of the staff to get the job done right and on time. Here is where I insert the cliche line: "And hilarious hi-jinks ensue".

Moving on to episode two we are faced with a weathered Kuromi, who has been "around the block" so to say. If you never caught episode one of the OVA series, there's a quick recap in the beginning of this episode to get you up to speed. In this part of the OVA the president of the studio delegates an assignment of three anime for the production team to work on, without hiring any extra help. Kuromi had enough troubles with her one series, 'Time Journeys', this new assignment would be a test of their mettle. However, to make matters worse, an "experienced" producer is brought on to their team and his name is Takashimadaira. The problem with Takashimadaira is that he views Kuromi is an amateur and as such, unable to "motivate" the crew to complete the shows by their deadlines. To Takashimadaira the deadline is much more important than anything like quality, so according to his plan, their quality goes by the wayside. You'll have to watch the rest to find out how the gang gets through the new ordeal and whether or not their deadlines are met.

CRITIQUE:
I'll be honest, when I first walked into this, I was a bit hesitant to watch because it just didn't look too appealing, of which I'll speak of a bit in the next section. I had rented the DVDs through NetFlix and they sat on my table for a very long time before I finally got around to watching them on two separate, lazy Sunday afternoons.

It's not an anime that will blow you away with its action or drama, but it had a good amount of humor and was quite informative. It's hard to say whether or not it was a true representation of the animation production industry, but I have a feeling that it was a close portrayal. It was interesting and fun watching the mannerisms of the different personalities on the team and gave me a little bit of a perspective on how tough and hectic the job can get.

One of the very nice features on these DVDs were the interviews with the director of the show and on the second DVD there was an extra called, 'A Day in the Life of Kuromi', which followed the seiyuu for Kuromi for one day as she tried to do the same job that Kuromi does in the anime. It was actually very interesting to watch that aspect of it, as you got to see how much of the real life paralleled the show.

AESTHETICS:
This won't be a long section this time around because honestly there's very little to be said about the video or audio within this piece. The animation is definitely very CG drawn and the models are very simple. The backgrounds are pretty nice, but there's nothing that makes this show's animation awe inspiring.

The music is a bit repetitive at points, but it doesn't detract from the story or the characters and the show keeps going without any issues.

So as I promised, short and sweet.

CONCLUSION:
Honestly, all I have to say about the show is that, while it doesn't impress on the visual front, its story and characters make up for the lack of other parts and I found it very entertaining. I would recommend it for any anime fan to at least rent this from NetFlix, if not buy it from a retailer. The DVDs are very likely quite cheap these days anyway, though a lot of sites list them as discontinued. I will post links for where you can find these, below.

And that does it for this review. As I've said before, I don't really like putting grades on these things, but from the general tone of my review, you can understand what my feelings are on the show. So until another time, ja ne.

WHERE TO PURCHASE:
Animation Runner Kuromi OVA 1
Animation Runner Kuromi OVA 2

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Review

BACK STORY:
Mobile Suit Gundam is a gigantic and fantastic (and throw in some more adjectives here) Japanese anime franchise, which has been around since the late 1970s and has persisted strongly all the way to the year of our lord, 2009... The brainchild of Yoshiyuki Tomino, this opus has been retold many times in many alternate settings and with many alternate characters, but in the end, the idea remains the same.

It is a bit of a mystery as to why they didn't just hold off the release of this series until this year, as to mark the 30th anniversary of the franchise, but with the coming of MSG Unicorn, that may be the anniversary mark in the making. Well, I could give more of a lecture on the history of the Gundam Universe, but I should probably get to the review of the anime at hand. Though I should preface by saying that I am a big fan of the Universal Century of Gundam so a lot of my biases and critiques come from that.

Gundam 00 was split up into two seasons and as much as I'd like to talk about the series as a whole, it's quite impossible, because the show really became a story of two seasons. Some would compare the first season to the likes of older Gundam sensation, Gundam Wing. While others would compare the second season to the likes of the classic Zeta Gundam, to this day my favorite Gundam series. While I don't think that 00 copies any of these shows directly, it is quite interesting to see the parallels that are created.

SUMMARY:
So what is the show, or rather the two seasons about? In the first season you are introduced to an organization seemingly created to bring peace to the world by taking the burden of conflict upon themselves. Celestial Being, as it is called, is created to intervene in all conflicts across the world, thereby instilling hatred towards themselves, to unite humanity against them. Very "Savior" like. It is comprised of four pilots, who pilot the namesakes of this show, the Gundam units. Each pilot has their own particular reason to hate wars and conflict and of course each one of these pilots also has some hidden back story that gets slowly revealed throughout the series. If you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, this sounds a lot like Gundam Wing!" you're right, it does, never mind that there were five pilots in Wing.

The second season seems to be a harsh contrast to the first as it seems to hearken back to the darker type of show that Gundam Zeta used to be. While I won't describe any major plot points, I will say, that Celestial Being is still in existence and that their goal of season one, seems achieved, though it may have turned out worse than they had even anticipated. This show parallels the plight of Celestial Being to that of the Arghama from the AEUG in Zeta Gundam and seems to invite the idea of "newtypes" back into the 00 continuity. They're not called newtypes in 00, but rather Innovators. The duly created A Laws were a blatant ripoff of, or maybe homage to, the Titans in the aforementioned Zeta Gundam. The second season in general seems to pay a lot of homages to the UC storyline and as such, created a very different atmosphere for the series.

CRITIQUE:
To a lot of people, Gundam Wing is a source of nostalgia and therefor they remember it as being a good series. While it's not a bad series per se, it is not the Gundam idea of a good series at all. For 00's season one to use so many of the same plot ideas as Wing, was a mistake in my opinion. The one thing that always bothered me about the series was the fact that these pilots had fantastic mobile suits and when faced with peons, in what looked like LEGO versions of mobile suits, they did phenomenally (and why shouldn't they), but as soon as a worthwhile opponent were to appear, they would become completely useless, whiny nincompoops. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that these pilots didn't rely on personal skill whatsoever, this whole show relied on the idea that the Gundam was to be the unstoppable unit and that's what mattered most. If you compare it to some of the older series of Gundam, even some of the newer ones, like SEED, the point of those series was that the pilots themselves gained an insight and knowledge on how to best use their mobile suits. Sure the Gundams in those series were overpowered, but at the same time, some moron off the street couldn't jump into the Hyaku Shiki and just become GOD. It required a knowledge of the controls, of tactics, and of the unit's capabilities in general.

Some may retort with the argument that 00's pilots were more realistic, because that may be how normal humans would react in such a situation. My reply to that argument is that Gundam was not meant to be realistic. There's a reason people watch shonen shows and I guarantee that it's not for the realism. I may be a bit harsh on the show, but it's only because I expect a certain caliber of performance from my Gundam.

The second season of Gundam 00 seemed to improve drastically over the first, at least in my opinion, while most fans would disagree. I must again mention that I feel Zeta Gundam is the strongest of the old Gundam series and for this show to try and emulate Zeta was a big plus for me. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty for me to dislike in the second season, but at around episode twelve or thirteen, where the group of Celestial Being is on a mission to take down the SUPER LASER Memento Mori, I felt like a child in a candy store; so full of glee. THIS is what shonen is all about! If I want realism, I can watch CNN, but when I want some escapism I need huge lasers that can destroy chunks of the Earth in a single blast. I enjoy an occasional realistic anime, but as I've stated previously, that's not what I want from my Gundam.

Lastly, about the characters in the show, I only want to mention that until mid season two, I didn't like ANY of the characters in the show, at all. In fact, there were SO many characters introduced that my head was left spinning at points. That for me was yet another value that added to the detriment of the show.

AESTHETICS:
I think I just felt like giving a fancy name to the section about video, audio, and other miscellaneous queries.

What can I say? The show is drawn beautifully and this is probably one of its strongest points. There were no moments during the telecast where I felt that I was getting ripped off by burgeoning costs resulting in sub par animation. The Gundams looked very nice, even if they did get a bit bland towards the end. And character animation was well done. So no complaints from me on that.

The audio, or more accurately the music and sound associated with the series was also well done. There were some exceptional insert songs and very little can be said in complaint of the Opening and Ending themes, though I did feel that the second season's music selection was actually stronger than the first's. In particular, the Tommy Heavenly6 track, Unlimited Sky, was fantastic.

Not much more to say about it other than what I have.

CONCLUSION:
Overall, while I'd love to say, "Go ahead and skip season one! Go straight to season two..." sadly, I cannot. The show would make absolutely no sense to someone who would just jump in during the second season. If you're a devoted Gundam fan, there's a reasonable pay off at the tail end of the series as a whole. If you're not a Gundam fan and this is your first mecha series, you may enjoy it, but keep in mind that it isn't what Gundam is truly about.

GRADE: C
Even though I don't like giving "grades" to series I watch, I felt it was important to show that it's a show that's teetering on the Average line. Take it as you may.


That's all for now, look forward to more reviews in the future!

Fall 2008 Season Opener Reviews Part 2

Hyakko - Episode 1

To continue with the season opener reviews, I will give a brief review of the new series called Hyakko that has also just recently began.

First off, the main reason I even decided to take a look at the anime is because I thought that the art style looked very nice and a little bit different from the typical. So, is it the typical romantic school comedy that it appears to be from just the picture of the show? From the looks of the first episode it does seem to be very typically comedic and set in a school setting, though no romantic elements have hit us over the head yet, thankfully.

The first episode sets us up with the four main heroines of the show, though if you asked me to recite their names, I would laugh in your face. They all have their different personalities and seem to get along to some extent. The episode centers on them inside their school, being lost because it's so large. Other than that, nothing much really happened besides the resolution to the minor conflict.

Who would I recommend this series for? The awfully bored, looking for something to watch, crowd. It's not very exciting and it's not horrible. I will watch maybe a few more episodes to see where it goes from here, and let you know whether it's worth your time or mine.

That's all for now, stay tuned for further reviews.

Fall 2008 Season Opener Reviews Part 1

Alright, as stated in the previous post, we will delve deeper into the season openers for the 2008 fall season. Without further delay...

Casshern Sins - Episodes 1 and 2

First off, I want to start of by saying that I have never seen the original Casshern series from the 1970s, so I have nothing to base my opinion on from previous series. That said, this new Casshern series throws us directly into the foray, which may seem a bit confusing and make little to no sense even for those who may have seen the old series. I happened to watch the first two episodes of this series because it did indeed intrigue me.
The story starts off in an apocalyptic looking Earth setting, where our protagonist, known as Casshern seems to be in a state of amnesia and in a constant battle against robots that are trying to devour him to gain eternal life, which seems to be a rumor according to the characters in the story. It is in the beginning that he supposedly kills a character by the name of Luna and causes something called "The Ruin", which seems to be killing robots everywhere. The reason I haven't mentioned humans yet is because as of right now, I can't really tell whether there are any humans present in the plot, besides possibly Casshern himself, though he's quite supernatural. We also get a brief glimpse into what looks like the main villain, who seems to be a robot himself and keeps saying that the thought of devouring Casshern for eternal life is just a rumor, nothing more. In the first episode, we are also introduced to a little girl (robot also), whose name is Ringo and who keeps admiring Casshern, calling him very pretty, but when she's in peril and Casshern comes to save her, she becomes deathly afraid of his killing drive. Lastly, we meet one more character. She is very upset with Casshern about something and wants to kill him, but won't, because he can't remember anything and that would just be an easy way out for him.

The second episode picks up exactly where the first one left off and finds Casshern in a camp of robots who are slowly being devoured by "The Ruin" and who seem to be aware of the rumor about devouring Casshern, but pretend that they can accept the death that's coming to them. This episode was interesting because it personified robots in a human manner, but still made them seem like robots in the end. I don't want do spoil anything from the episode, so I will leave it at that.

Overall, I enjoyed the first two episodes of the series even if they left me quite confused. It has a very interesting art style and the plot was dark, but highly enjoyable. I will definitely continue following the show's progress.

The Fall 2008 Anime Season Start

Well, just like everyone else on the face of the blogging world, I've decided that I would do a little summary on the anime that I have looked at from this new 2008 Fall season. Now, mostly, this is for myself to keep track of the shows I'm watching this season, but also for you guys, I will try to make short reviews for each episode as I watch it, depending on whether or not I choose to follow said anime.
The following anime will be reviewed this time around:
Casshern Sins
Hyakko
Lucky Star OVA
Kuroshitsuji (Kuro Shitsuji)
Chaos Head
ToraDora!
These are what I have watched and what I plan to discuss. The next post will start detailing the releases.

GTA4

By now, any of you that care will know that RockStar released a teaser trailer for GTA4 tonight at 6PM. Any that are still in the dark should go here and partake of it. It's been a couple hours, and most places have posted their thoughts on the matter already, but now it's my turn.

The trailer runs for about a minute, and doesn't really include much plot. One thing that is obvious from it is that the character this time around is some sort of Russian smuggler/slave trader that has come to Liberty City for a second chance.

Yes, it takes place in Liberty City, at least according to the signs. If you pause the video at the right time, you can clearly see a sign that clearly says "Welcome to Liberty City". The confusion starts when you consider the timeline that this game takes place in.

Considering the look of the city, it seems like a more accurate representation of New York City. There are things like the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty, along with some very detailed coastline that could fit a New York atmosphere.

Here are my thoughts. If we are to believe that this is the Liberty City of past games, where have all these new buildings come from, or where have they gone. Assuming this is the same universe as the other games, it also shows a Ferry Station, which exists in Liberty City Stories, but is replaced by an underwater tunnel in GTA3. Either it takes place before the other Liberty City games, or they've brought back the ferry station. The cars look too new for the setting to be placed too far in the past, and if they've already got a tunnel, why would they make another ferry station?

However, I'm having a thought. RockStar are no fools, and they wouldn't make a trailer like that without a reason. I have an incling that this may be some sort of April Fools prank, where they release a trailer, and two days later they say "April Fools, here's the real trailer." It seems like something they might do. There are too many ideas running through my head, and for now I just have to leave them alone, and see how everything plays out in the next few days.

Gilmorne Out.