2011-2012 Winter Season of Anime

Another year has passed, and like all journeys, the road ahead seems long, but short once traveled. This year I have made and lost friends, quit my old restrictive job and found new employment with a brighter future, and sold my BMW and now drive an old Ford Taurus. Inner demons still reign within me, but enough about my life story, let’s talk anime.
Winter is already upon us, and so is the next season of anime. After reading their synopses and visiting their websites, these are the anime titles I will first try:

Another – Dark and intriguing to my tastes.

Black Rock Shooter – Strangely, there is a paucity of a summary, but I like what I saw on of its preview. Crisp animation, plentiful action, and suggestions of a grim plot.

Recorder to Randoseru – Something light-hearted to balance my anime diet for the next season.

With a drink in hand, to the New Year. Cheers.

UN GO after episode 11 – Final Thoughts

I very much liked UN GO. Every episode was aptly paced, and the case studies were complex enough to obfuscate my senses, but yet not enough to break plausibility. UN GO managed to trod that fine line between obviousness and absurdity. I am, however, a little disappointed in the animation, especially in the last episodes, where it was clear that budget was a concern. The show does not quite fully answer the questions I would have liked to hear. We can try to read between the lines, whatever happened in the war, it probably did not go very well for Japan, as a significant portion of the city’s buildings are left in rubble. One thematic consequence of the war that can be clearly seen was information control, in order to keep the public’s probably already low morale (perhaps due to the poor outcome of the war) under control. UN GO once again prompts the age old question: should the truth always be revealed? One thing that still bothers me though is, why does someone, or rather, something like Inga and Bettenou exist? They are supernatural beings in a mostly logical world, sticking out like Lamborghinis in a Toyota dealership. Anyways, eleven episodes of UN GO felt a little short, and its setting is still ripe for exploration. Here’s to hoping for a second season.

Path of Exile – Beta Impressions

I was fortunate enough to be granted a closed beta key for Path of Exile about a week and a half ago by one of my best friends. I have been following Path of Exile for over a year, and I was more than exhilarated when the game was finally installing on my computer. I have chosen a witch as my first character, beaten the normal difficulty of the beta, and just gained level thirty.
If anyone has even watched one trailer of Path of Exile, they would not object in describing it as Diablo 2.5. The similarities are almost unabashed, particularly in terms of character skills. That’s not to say the similarities are a bad thing. Diablo 2 was a fantastic game, and one of my personal favorite computer games of all time. It would not be an understatement to say that I have sunk thousands of hours into Diablo 2. Path of Exile, like Torchlight and Titan Quest, captures the essence of a Diablo-like ARPG. The isometric presentation, the dark and dank dungeons crawling with monsters, the gathering of valuable loot; the recipe for addiction is there in Path of Exile. Suffice to say, I’m having a lot of fun playing Path of Exile.
There are some flaws I want to point out. I feel the field of view is a little too zoomed in. I would love to have the ability to zoom in (for example, to check out my character wearing that cool armor I just found) and out, and freedom of rotation, with maximum zoom displaying an area with radius perhaps around 1.5 times larger than the current perspective. Also, the game doesn’t really have an overarching sense of plot. While Diablo 2 had a clear ultimate goal of hunting the greater evils, in Path of Exile the quests are more or less unconnected. So the game feels directionless. Fortunately the lure to kill and loot is strong, but if you are not interested in that, well, Path of Exile doesn’t have much of a story to tell, yet. Maybe the story will be fleshed out when the game is fully developed.
For a free game, I am fairly impressed with the amount of polish so far. The graphics are detailed, and the spells are even prettier. Action is smooth, and controls are crisp. I have not encountered any bugs. A Diablo-like clone worthy of your time, if you’re lucky enough to be invited at this phase of development.

Last Exile – Fam, The Silver Wing after episode 08

Well, so far Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing has confirmed my fears and has been thoroughly disappointing. Cheesy and cliché writing abound. Also, Fam, Giselle, and Millia are no where near as compelling as the main characters in the original, Claus and Lavie. What’s worse, is the extreme stretch of suspension of disbelief. Big battleships gets stolen by simple costume impersonation and forgery. Like really? Are there not security identification, tracking, or any kind of surveillance cameras aboard these ships capable of mass destruction? And I don’t care how powerful the ship Silvius is, with literally fleets of enemy ships shooting at it, it should’ve gone down in the first barrage. To top it off, a single bullet from Giselle’s pistol brings down a capital ship. Yeah yeah, it’s anime…