Top 10 Favorite Anime – Did your favorites make the list? (Probably not)

This list was actually not really hard to make. Despite watching over 250 shows it doesn’t take very long for me to go “Oh yeah that show was great.” or “I really enjoyed watching that.” When I look over what I’ve seen. But don’t get me wrong. Just because I pick these few out doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoyed most of the shows I’ve seen. Well, mostly just the ones I given an 8 and up to. I just want to tell you now there is no bullshit on here like Haruhi, Code Geass or Lucky Star. Mediocre garbage belongs in its own top 10 list. Also I really didn’t try to sum up the plot or the story of each show. I figure you can just use ANN or Wikipedia for that. I wanted to focus on why I liked the show specifically.

Oh, yeah this list also only contains series and not movies or OVAs.

Natsuiro no Sunadokei – Pretty decent

Yeah, you’ve probably never heard of this show, and to be honest neither have I. Although I think I might have been recommended it a long time ago by someone online. Probably the GameFaqs anime board. Anyway, this is just a 2 episode OVA, and actually I did find it not too bad. I can really see Sunadokei being well liked by casual anime fans such as those who don’t watch it often or haven’t seen many shows. I didn’t find it horrible but I found it quite average.

Sunadokei doesn’t get caught up in developing on the other characters since it doesn’t have the time to and basically focuses on the main character as he tries to help his girlfriend out from getting into an accident. This doesn’t mean all the other female characters don’t want to get in bed with the hero though.

When the hero hears about his girlfriend’s death it actually interested me from the get go. Before he finds out he has a random run in with a time traveler who actually came to his time to prevent his girlfriend’s death. Some magical hourglass sand gets on him though which causes him to randomly time travel, but he has no control over it.

The whole time traveling thing to save the past or future during the summer kinda reminded me of Kimagure Orange Road Summer’s Beginning. I dunno. They’re both about an average kinda guy trying to get things back to normal, only a few cast of characters and on a rather low scale. Although, Kimagure Orange Road Summer’s Beginning is arguably better.

Yeah so Sunadokei deals with time travel. I was a little turned down because if it’s time travel and he’s aware of this accident then couldn’t he just do certain things to just make it not happen? Like not go on a date that day or go to the scene of the accident ahead of time? The time traveler that has come to try and fix this problem says that he must break up with his girlfriend. The main character doesn’t want to do this so these two episodes is basically him trying to find a way to get around this. Also, the show tries to make BS statements that he is outside the time-space something or other and only he can change time. Getting other people involved would only mess up the future even more or something. I’ll buy it. I’m not going to look deep into it.

There are some pretty well known voices used in here that aren’t even on screen very much. Nana Mizuki is the lead heroine’s voice. I totally love Nana Mizuki’s innocent and shy girl voice. I don’t hear her voice in such roles very often but one of the top of my head that I remember was Rosario+Vampire.

Despite a few plot twists that could be seen from a mile away, Natsuiro no Sunadokei wasn’t too bad of a watch. Decent animation and music with a focused plot that wraps up nicely in its given 2 episodes. An average OVA but not as bad as OVAs I’ve watched in the past at least.

As an FYI, the visual novel of this was translated by the now closed Hirameki as a DVD (or something) but all the prons were taken out.

Some negative criticism for Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne

Well, currently I am about half way through the game, and at about 25-30 hours. It’s an alright game but I’m definitely noticing somethings that didn’t make it in my first impressions on it.

ENCOUNTER RATE

OMG the encounter rate in Nocturne is shit. No wonder no one says you need to grind in Nocturne because you already freaking are. Now, of course you can try and run away but that doesn’t always work. Also, on Hard mode you can’t even run away period. I’m not playing on Hard but I think that needed to be stated. The encounter rate in Nocturne is just horrid and unnecessary. It’s like take a step. Battle. Take a step. Battle. Then sometimes you’ll have multiple reinforcements in one single battle that just makes it more tedious.

I really hope you like random encounters because you’ll be fighting them from beginning to end. It is very rare you’ll find a zone where you won’t find random encounters. This is fine but I wish maybe they did something where the stronger you are the encounter rate would go down in some areas, but no not at all. Very annoying and really the main problem that is annoying me. Especially in dungeons where it involves a lot of backtracking and exploring which leads me to my second annoyance.

THE DUNGEONS

To be fair, the dungeons haven’t been bad up to this point and have actually been very straight forward. Except for Ikebukuro Tunnel and the Prison I’ve been alright. I hated going through these two dungeons because they involved a lot of backtracking. In Ikebukuro Tunnel they even thought it was cool to add random pitfalls that, as far as I know, you would have no idea they where they are until you fall in them. It’s annoying and makes you backtrack, and with the encounter rate makes getting back to where you were before take a bit of time.

The Prison was a little confusing because I didn’t notice the switches at first so I found myself having to look for the switches to open the gates and what not. Also, the color of the mirage world kinda made it hard to navigate. All and all, I’m at least glad they gave players a damn map because without it I would be totally lost in some areas.

MUSIC

Like I said in my first entry the music is really hit or miss for me. Although, one track I’ve really gotten tired of is the damn boss battle music. It is annoying as hell. I hate the shouting voices or are they dogs barking? Whatever the hell they are they really don’t add to the song and rather make it really annoying to listen to. Overall I think the music in Nocturne is kinda bland and generic metal/rock sounding. There are some tracks that I like but they’re really only played once or twice like Dante Battle, and the Amala Network battle music.

PLOT

WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR

Eh, I’m kinda sick of not having a plot. There really is nothing much going on in this game. I feel like just some guy that is in it for the ride with no real purpose. There is no defined goal so to speak. Is it to stop the Conception from fully happening? Is it to to go on and seek your friends and teacher? I have no clue. I guess you could just make up your own BS reason because I mean the hero is supposed to be YOU. Still even the worst of silent protagonists had supporting characters that helped shape the plot along. Nocturne just has really… A lot of random encounters and maybe two sentences of dialogue before a boss fight. So basically I think Nocturne is essentially an Asian grind gaem.

Also I think it’s kinda odd how when the Conception happened there was instantly two factions fighting for supremacy. How the hell did that happen so damn fast? That is some serious plot holes.

-

A little annoyed that I started Nocturne at this point because I really am getting an itch for wanting to play Dragon Quest 8, but I have this kind of personality that I absolutely must finish what I start. I figure I’m about halfway through anyway so It’ll be over in maybe 10 or 15 more hours. Also I doubt I’ll be able to finish Dragon Quest 8 before I have to go back to college for one more semester anyway. So I might as well just play Nocturne.

I did order Dragon Quest 5 finally off Amazon used because I just could not find it anywhere around where I live being sold. Apparently I was told that they discontinued it. This surprised me a lot because it hasn’t even been out that long either right? Jeez. Oh well, can’t wait for that to get here. :3

CHAOS;HEAD, you’re always super stuuuuuuuuuupid

Ugh. Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Awful. Awful show this turned out to be. I had some high hopes that it might be interesting because I mean the first episode seemed kinda thriller/suspenseful like and I mean having an unreliable narrator was cool. But really Chaos Head turned into a real shit show.

The first step for a show not going well for me is does it make me care. No, no it didn’t. I hated the main character. He was downright creepy, a pervert, sickly, a total sleazeball. Ugh! The female characters are all your cliche archetype cutouts you’ve seen over 9000 times before. Nothing to see here. Hated them all. Totally didn’t care what was going on to them most of the time.

He has the right idea. I should have just dropped it much earlier as well.

The plot was kinda interesting at first because I mean there were random murders, and what not but then it got kinda Sci Fi like and I lost interest. It wasn’t even really good Sci Fi. By around halfway I totally lost interest completely but just kept hanging on because I wanted to know just what was going on and to see how the show was going to execute it. Totally disappointing and I hated all abundant of technobabble and DERP. The only cool looking things in the entire show were the Di-Swords. Those things looked pretty bad ass.

The animation is high QUALITY amirite?

There is a lot better shows out there that do what Chaos Head tried to do. Honestly just pick up anything by Satoshi Kon and you’re set. What a stupid show and a waste of my time. This was Studio Madhouse? I don’t believe this. On the other hand, I think Chaos Head would make a great drinking game. Every time the word delusion, devil woman, and Di-Sword show up you take a shot. It’s bound to get you wasted.

Fan translated anything is probably bad

Note: I don’t profess to know Japanese, but I would like to have some level of confidence in my abilities.

Yeah, I dunno. Fan translated things can be good and even better than official translations on a casual level. Although, then there are times where I think that when studying Japanese and trying to learn Japanese it is better to wane off anything fan translated. I mean as far as studying the Japanese original and then comparing your translations to what others have translated in the fanscanlations, fansubs or whatever. I’ve found that it is only going to make you doubt yourself and your confidence in learning Japanese.

I think all people kind of have this feeling that they want to be confident in what they do so they need to check up on what other people do for that extra boost of confidence. I really can’t say of all instances but I’m sure all groups have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I mean ANYONE can just start a fansubbing group and no one really cares about the level of translation or skill the fan translator has.

I really have only this one instance, but I’m reading this manga and this group is translating it. I thought it would be good to see how I thought my translations would match up to there’s. Some lines I personally had trouble with I could understand better with the fan English help but then there were simpler lines that, maybe they were very loose with the translation, just seemed very wrong to me.

Very easy lines that could have been looked online or something. Also, I think it is a little odd when you add lines that weren’t in the original text or even take out words that are essentially important. Maybe I’m being nitpicky. I don’t know. I don’t think there is much to gain in using fan anything to help study Japanese. I know we all want to have reassurance in our abilities by seeing what other people have done. The thing is though they might not be right either. Anyway, what am I doing checking it with an English translation that could be right or wrong? I need to think in Japanese to understand Japanese in the first place!

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I guess I’m just a little ticked off that the group in question didn’t take my message with the certain errors that I questioned in their translation. I asked to talk to their translator as to why they he translated those lines as such. Hrm, well any case, their latest chapter of this manga is solid and matches with how I would translate it despite there are a few lines that make me wonder why some lines were deleted and such. Also, people hate to be corrected too I guess…

Comments? Insight?

What Cross†Channel has a translation patch? – Impressions

…Although just 50% so far. I will say though that this guy has been super fast so I suppose the conclusion 50% will be done in no time.

I honestly had no idea the game was getting translated until I found a post regarding recent visual novel translation on /jp/ which I have been frequenting a little more lately out of loneliness. So, yeah Cross Channel. Ever since I heard about this game during my senior year of high school, I have been interested in it. I don’t know why. I think mostly because at first glance it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a game that makes you think about things and two it was, to be honest, my first eroge experience. My blog is called Cross Channel although not in English like in the game. Also, I use the light blue and white colors that make the Gunjo Gakuen’s uniform for the colors of this blog, and finally my profile picture is of Taichi the main character.

I love Iris Chateaubriand – Loli Appreciation

“That ribbon really suits you, and the way you make your hair in little curls is cute. Your blue eyes are very beautiful.”

“Heheh. I was praised by Oniichan. Hey, Iris will become Oniichan’s girlfriend?”

“Eh?!

Just some lines from the Sakura Taisen 1 remake on the Playstation 2 that I feel would shed some light onto Iris’s character. Oh where do kids learn these things? I first encountered Iris in the Sakura Taisen OVA released by ADV in 98. It was the English version, and at the time I had no idea what Sakura Taisen was about or anything. Then over the years I gradually got the entire game series on the Dreamcast and what not. She was the first character I finished Sakura Taisen 1 and 2 with. It’s been years since I played these games and at the time I knew zero Japanese so I can’t really comment on her back story sadly.

Regardless, I really like Iris and a classic loli character worth mentioning along side those of say Ruri Hoshino, and Sakura Kinomoto. She is most certainly the token loli of the first 2 Sakura Taisen games, but I personally think she is the best of the 3 in the franchise. Coquelicot & Rika just can’t match Iris’s natural loli appeal which is cute, but she is extremely (read: dangerously) precocious for her age of 9. Short blonde hair, blues eyes, and very childish clothes. Not to mention, Iris is just going to grow up to be drop dead gorgeous as seen in her dream sequences in Sakura Taisen 1.

I really prefer Sakura Taisen 1 Iris not because she is the youngest version :3 but because I think the green dress and pink ribbon is better than the outfit she switches to in 2 and for the rest of the series (wtf?). The new outfit is a little cuter, but I mean it’s kinda all the same color. It’s like orange, yellow and white on a character who already has blonde hair. Are you trying to make me go blind?

Sometimes I wonder if Ohgami is just humoring Iris half the time, but it does seem kinda strange when you can choose to say rather grown up things to Iris. It usually gets some very humorous results from the peanut gallery though. It is so LOL to see Sakura get all jealous over Iris, who is just a child, getting praised by Ohgami. I swear the first time I saw Iris’s (blushing?) face on the PS2 version, I kinda had a raised eyebrow because she looks like she’s ready for some. Eh, I dunno. It just looks more like a kind of face you wouldn’t see on a kid, I guess. Haha.

I’m really looking too deep into these things. It’s predominately a comedy game, and not meant to be anything on the pron side. Maybe a little suggestive though…

I tell you guys. I’m happy Sakura Taisen 5 is getting brought over in English for many who have wanted it to be over for years. Many who don’t know any Japanese at all. I can’t help but feel a bit of sadness that 5 is going to be their first experience. 5 is going to bring them into the franchise, and that is why I weep a little bit on the inside. The Sakura Taisen franchise is classic, and one of my favorites, but 5 is crappy. The first 4 is what makes Sakura Taisen what it is. If you ever get the chance try the other ones out too. They’re all practically fan translated anyway.

Although, at least NIS is releasing 5 with English AND Japanese audio on two separate discs for a relative cheap price. So props to them for that, and a great thing actually.

My Iris and Hanabi, two favorite characters in the series, drawn by that lady I think has no talent since all her faces look the same.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – YES NO BLACK BLOOD HERE

I watched this entire episode in Japanese without subs for listening comprehension improvement purposes so I can’t really comment on what was going on too much (it all went downhill when Maria started to read that letter), but oh boy they delivered in this one! GORE and BLOOD. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NIIIIIIIIIIIIICE! NIIIIIIIIIIICE!

Did anyone notice Rika and Hanyuu on the TV that Maria was watching. LOL

Shugo Chara – He likes her but not her

And thus I am reminded of Ranma 1/2.

This kinda makes me dislike that kid. I mean, that’s kinda low. That’s like saying I only like when you’re drunk.

Eberouge – Have you heard of it? Didn’t think so

The only image I could really find…

Yeah, I dunno. This game was one of the random buys out of many I wanted to do while in Japan but I only ended up with this game in the end because I never had enough money to get anything else before I left. Oh well, so about this game. It was originally on the Saturn but probably due to the Saturn dying gradually they ported it over to the Playstation. It looks to me to be a direct port. I kinda wish that they at least would have improved things like character designs, and just the graphics in general because the Playstation was such a great powerhouse at the time for those things.

So, I really don’t know what the plot is. The game explains it in an opening animated sequence right when you put the game in, but my listening comprehension is horrible, and I haven’t bothered to read the manual because lazy. But according to Wikipedia, this is what the game is about…

The story happens in a parallel world named EbeLand. The setting is similar to the medieval age in Europe. Magic is common and is a common subject taught in colleges. In this world, the ecosystem is originated and supported by a central huge tree. However, due to the overdevelopment of industries and use of fossil fuel, global warming is rampant. The huge tree is dying, which endangers the game world.

Long ago, this land was saved by the Goddess Ebe from total destruction, but years later, an archeologist among the survivors felt the balance of the land tipping again. So he created institutes to train a student that can create magic, as the Goddess did, to save the land once more.

Yeah, so you play this kid named Qualenac Russiyoung. Yeah, you read that right. All the characters in this game have weird and long names that make no sense. Anyway, you first see this opening sequence of his father taking him to this school where the game takes place. His father hugs him and leaves. He has a room mate named Noische Amolphy who is either a male or female. I’m a little confused and trying to figure this out myself. S/he’s images in the manual look like a girl but the in game graphics look like a boy. The voice is obviously a female but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m leaning more towards it’s a girl, and probably a hidden character.

The characters in general are… They have personality, I guess, but totally unlikable. Nothing on the level of say Tokimemo or True Love Story. One female character was complaining how guys are never straight forward. Ugh, bitchy. Another female character was just plain bitchy when she asked me to vote for her in some kind of beauty contest and I picked no, and he said to her that he’ll think about it. She’s like,”Oh, so that means you’re not voting for me.” I still went to this contest where she won and she got all mad over that I went to it even though I didn’t vote for her. The protagonist thought to himself, “Boy, girls sure are difficult.” That made me laugh actually. On the whole, they all seem to have fit the standard archetypes, and nothing better than that.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like how the characters are introduced. They just seem to be introduced in a way that you’re already supposed to know who they are. I also dislike that there is a severe lack of content and events, but this might not be something that is just a problem in this game. In seems like a lot of early date sims were like this. Tokimemo 1 has only few per character, and True Love Story has a few per season.

So basically the game play is a lot like Tokimeki Memorial where you spend a lot of your time learning various subjects and meeting females except instead of learning ordinary things you’re studying things like martial arts, magic, and such. If they have some kind of greater purpose or something later in the game I’m not sure because to be honest this game is crappy so I shut it off after a few hours.

I hope you have music laying around to listen to because the music in Eberouge is going to get old very fast. There literally must be only two tracks in this entire game. Didn’t it ever occur to them to change the music occasionally? I mean no matter what season it is you’re going to hear the same tunes on the main screen when you’re picking your schedule for the week. At least Konami had the decency to change the music for each season so it didn’t feel like it ever got annoying or whatever.

If you know well over 1000 Kanji and have a good grasp of grammar this game should be pretty damn easy to play for you. …But it’s not like date simulation games are rocket science anyway. Hahah. But seriously stay away from this game it’s horrible. If I would say that Tokimemo and True Love Story are god tier franchises than Eberouge is shit tier. I never even heard of the game company, Fujitsu, before.

Maybe I am just being too critical and looking at it from the eyes of someone who has played such great and more polished games that were made, but then again this was made in 97 and Tokimemo 1 was released on the Playstation in 95 so I can’t say there is any excuse for some of the unpolished elements in this game. Perhaps this is just a trashy game that might have been made to just rip off Tokimemo’s success?