Giant Robot Review: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

As a fan of anime mecha I have of course known of 2007's Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (TTGL from now on to save on typing) for some time now. It's been getting immensely popular, not just among fellow mecha fans but surprisingly among general anime fans. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I don't know. Mecha anime usually has its strict niche audience but TTGL has managed to transcend that subset of anime geeks.

I shouldn't be that surprised, as Gainax is responsible for other popular mecha titles like Gunbuster and Neon Genesis Evangelion which have also made a big impact on anime, especially Evangelion which is perhaps one of the most popular and influential anime series in existence (even though I personally kind of hate it).

TTGL is set in the far future where humans are forced to live under ground. We don't know why right away and I don't want to give much away since there's still quite a few people who haven't seen the series yet and are waiting for the soon to be released DVDs. At the beginning we follow around Simon the digger, a young boy who... well... digs. He digs to help expand his village and does so dutifully, believing that digging is the only thing he's good at. Then there's his "big bro" Kamina with crazy sunglasses that end up becoming the icon of the series, and a hot blooded attitude that parodies/pays homage to super robot heroes of the old days. Kamina's dream is to break through the ceiling of their cave dwelling and reach the surface, something to pair achieve at the end of the episode after being introduced to robots designed around giant heads called Ganmen (or Gunmen I'm not sure what the proper romanization is yet).

The story that follows is filled with great super robot action, entertaining commedy, and heart wrenching drama. It takes the formula of the common super robot show, twists it to suit its needs, and creates an excellent show. The problem with a lot of super robot shows is they're really over the top, but their stories and characters leave something to be desired. There's always a sense of cliche especially in the OVAs based on older shows. This isn't always a bad thing, and there's a lot of purposely inserted cliches in TTGL, but they've managed to make a show that's both absolutely absurd with lovable characters and a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat at the end of each episode.

The first half of the show progresses predictably where an enemy shows up, the heroes scream really loud and through courage and hot blood the enemies are defeated. You never really see them as evil though early on they seem to fight for no good reason like most super robot bad-guys you learn at the epic climax of the show's first half that there was some method to their madness. The second half of the series takes a dramatic left turn and everything changes. In a way the show's plot covers a lot of ground in terms of anime mecha history, paying homage to a lot of old sources and deriving its story and design from them while somehow being fresh and original. Everything in the show ties together and even when things get really ridiculous or come out of nowhere there's usually a reason or the event was somehow foreshadowed.

That's enough about the story though as I really don't want to say much. The show's animation is superb, done sort of in the same style as Gainax's popular show FLCL while at the same time also resembling old style super robot anime. The result is a very kinetic show, especially the action which is frantic, breathtaking, and downright insane. It's full of eye candy for mechaheads and general anime fans alike.

There's really not much else I can say about this show other than kick reason to the curb and pierce the heavens! Go and watch it right now, you're in for a ride.

10 out of 10

DS Game Review: Front Mission

Although I got the game Front Mission months ago I finally got around to finally beating it mainly because I've been on one of my giant robot kicks again. I've known about Front Mission for a long time, but it's a series that's remained in Japan for the most part except for the PlayStation installment Front Mission 3 and the PS2 sequel Front Mission 4. I've played neither of those games though I'm no stranger to Japanese turned based strategy games/Turn based RPGs.

I found the original Front Mission for DS surreptitiously as I didn't even know it existed and I wasn't aware at first it was an enhanced port of the original Super Famicom game that for whatever reason (Probably Squaresoft thinking it too hard/complicated for their Western audience, something they did a lot of back then.) Knowing the name and the reputation it has among fans of mecha like myself I bought it for a bargain price that I still don't understand since everywhere I see it today is much more expensive.

In any case let's get to the actual game. Front Mission is a strategy role-playing game, with an emphasis on the strategy part. It reminds me a lot of Battletech in both the oddly Western robot designs and the whole squad based combat angle that the game takes. There are two scenarios you can play in, the beginner's campaign which is the original campaign from the Super Famicom original and the more advanced campaign made specifically for the remake so it's a little shorter. Both tell the same story from different sides of a war that's being fought on a newly formed island in the Pacific in the near future. The story is simple, but full of interesting plot twists as you uncover a military conspiracy. The same events happen in both campaigns, the second campaign referencing the first quite a few times, even having cameos from some of your characters in the first game. It was a neat addition, and I'm sure the Japanese kids who were addicted to this game when it was originally released really got a kick out of it. I did and I've only known the characters for a few months now.
Besides the leveling up of characters and learning skills aspect the game-play is really bent more towards the strategy aspect. You get over a dozen troops and you can literally spend hours tweaking and customizing your robots or "Wanzers" as Front Mission calls them. Wanzer is short for "Wandrung Panzer" which means "Walking Tank." You can choose which arms, legs, body, a variety of hand held and shoulder mounted weapons, and an energy boosting backpack that makes up your Wanzer. The customization is by far the deepest element of the game, though the combat isn't a walk in the park.

Basically your Wanzers are situated on a pseudo-3D isometric scene separated into a grid. The environments are pretty well drawn, upgraded from the Super Famicom version, and they range from all types of scenes from urban fighting to forests, mountains, deserts, etc. You move your Wanzers around on this grid, and a supply truck that can repair and reload if you have one, and engage the enemy from long, medium, and short ranges. The long range weapons like missiles and medium range weapons like bazookas are essential to success because an enemy can't counter attack when you're attacking them from a distance. The short range weapons like other guns and melee attacks however require you to get up close and personal and unless you destroy the weapon they're attacking with or stun them they'll most likely counter attack you. If you try to do a melee attack and the enemy has a gun however, he'll get the first shot. The damage is randomized and you can destroy an arm, legs, or torso, the latter causing the entire enemy to blow to smithereens if you destroy it. Later in the game you do get the skills to target certain parts and it helps immensely.
When you attack somebody the view changes, and you get to see your little customized robot kick ass in a nicely animated and more detailed little scene. Every part has its own sprite which makes the customization even more interesting. My only complaint about combat is just how broken long range attacks are. You're limited on missile ammo but they're usually rather powerful and they don't require you to put your units in danger. There's also items like chaff that throw off missiles but for the most part missiles are insane and I've won entire missions with long range barrages alone. They don't completely break the game though, and I really enjoyed the simple combat as well as buying new weapons to see what they do.

I also need to stress the length of this game. If you go through both campaigns you're looking at easily over 60+ hours of game-play especially if you're obsessive compulsive about customizing your Wanzers like I was. This game is best in small doses though, I really don't recommend anybody sit down and go through several missions at once because you really need a break after some intense tinkering with parts and fighting for your life in a mission only to be presented with a whole new collection of parts.

I can't really recommend this game to everyone because you need to devote a lot of time and effort into it to really get the most out of it. If you do give it a chance though you're in for a lot of the old Squaresoft magic with an intelligent story, inexplicably fun game-play, and lots and lots of robots beating the crap out of each other. I don't know why Squaresoft didn't release this on the Super Nintendo but I think it would have been a classic in the West if they had. As it stands now the game is a bit dated, but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone who enjoys old-school graphical style as it's certainly not ugly just dated compared to what the DS is capable of. There are some sweet CGI cut-scenes in the second campaign at the very least. It's a game that I feel like I missed out on that I'm glad the Nintendo DS let me experience.

8 out of 10

Getting my Emo Ducks in a Row

It's been a while since I posted anything mainly because life has been such a shitstorm that I haven't had an opportunity to worry about anything enough to post. Obama is still black, Hillary is still ugly, John McCain will eat your babies, none of that has changed really so who cares.

This past week especially has conspired to crush my will and turn me into a depressed lump who has to complain about his problems to make-believe people on the Internet. I'm still on a failing path to not finding an internship and time is running out. I'm barely staying alive in Spanish class and to make matters worse I lost my actually lost my Spanish book so I can't even study for a quiz tomorrow. To make money worse I got a $42.50 fine for an accidental traffic violation from a few weeks ago, hooray. I failed one stinking part of my comprehensive exam which I'll have to probably retake. With my personal life my grandfather keeps whining about dying and my cousin might have cancer and everybody else in the family has some kind of God damned ailment to worry about including myself.

It's times like this I withdraw into myself. I never solve my problems because I just sit back and let them consume me. I try not to complain about anything in my life, except on the Internet where I can do so without fear of some made up repercussions and as such here I am right now. I start to question whether I belong here in college, if I wasted time and money and I disappointed my family and myself. I'm scared to death of failure that seems like a distinct possibility at this late in the game. The university itself doesn't make it any easier considering they want you to stay here your entire life and keep injecting them with money.

My professional writing group internship meeting today was probably the last straw. People admitted to not having an internship yet, but when it was asked who didn't have any idea at all what they were doing I was the only one left raising my hand. I was pretty visually shaken after than and sat there for a while until just about everybody left. One of my best professors sat down to talk to me and offer me help but I was too out of it to really say much at that point. I went to a bathroom stall and just cried for the next ten minutes, feeling like I was having a psychotic break. I try to act tough both online and in real life, but I'm a weak person with a weak will who's easily beaten. Stress always wins which is probably why I have a stress related illness which is the only thing that isn't helping to screw with my psyche right now thankfully.

I feel lost already, thrown to the dogs and I'm still in school with people who can help me but I'm afraid to ask for the help because I either don't know how to or don't know how to be helped as if it will cheapen me somehow. I don't really know what I'm even talking about right now to be honest. For at least over a month now I've been in a period of self-loathing and self-depreciation that can't be healthy yet I'm slipping into it more and more deeply. The problem is the more I get myself down the less likely I am to do something about it, the more likely I am to sit here and feel bad about myself.

I've always followed the credo that there's always somebody out there that has it worse, that really has a reason to be upset, but that's bullshit. As a human being it's my right to be upset. If I can't handle this nonsense what am I going to do once I'm out of the safety net of the education system? What will I do when I'm buried in debt trying to find a stable job in an economy that's slipping deeper and deeper into a recession while I detach myself further and further from reality. Maybe it's because I grew up in an era of unparalleled hope and optimism only to live in an era of depression and pessimism as an adult that I'm not well suited to handle the real world and if that's the case why should I bother trying if I'm not going to be happy?

In any case I'm sorry to be an emo duck, filling the tubes with e-drama as if there isn't enough of that already. If this all manages to blow over somehow I'll continue posting regularly until my next awkward emotional phase. If not then don't expect very many posts from now on. Thank you for being a tool of catharsis mien blog.

Scientology, the Internet, and You

I guess I've been quiet on this topic for too long now though I feel like a slowpoke for commenting on it now. If you've been reading the blog out there in cyberspace somewhere you probably already know I'm a pretty outspoken person when it comes to scams and religious nonsense and general foolishness like conspiracies and "holier-than-thou" attitudes. As such, I feel I need to write something about the current events spawned by the Internet.

Scientology has been getting a lot of press lately, especially because people love to watch Tom Cruise do stupid things. Scientology has also given us some laughs in the past like the absolutely attrocious John Travolta movie Battlefield Earth. Not everything about it is a laughing matter however. Scientology has been blamed for luring people into their group and slowly indoctrinating them, forcing them to pay more and more money to learn the secrets of the "religion" which gets more and more absurd and involves space aliens and I'll stop now because it's all been said before. In any case if you try to leave or criticize Scientology you usually find yourself on the receiving end of legal action and harassment. Their policies which include not wanting their followers to medicate themselves and their absolute hatred of psychology (they base most of these beliefs off of L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics) has at the very least caused one death, a woman by the name of Lisa McPherson. In any case you can do your own research and make your own conclusions on what some call a religion, others call a cult, and I call a corporate enterprise.

A few weeks ago a Scientology recruitment video staring Tom Cruise was leaked onto the Internet where it was promptly made fun of. Scientology sprung into action to have this video removed and in most cases they succeeded though Gawker.com saw the video as newsworthy and decided not to remove it even after threats of legal action. This didn't really matter anyway because the video had already made its rounds and everyone saw it and parodies even made it to late night television shows. The attempt to suppress/censor the Internet however caught the attention of some people. These people are known as "Anonymous."

If you know who Anonymous is, then you have one of a few reactions to them. You're one of them, you're apathetic towards their acts, or you absolutely hate them. If you don't know who Anonymous is let me just simplify it by saying they're a loose group of people (thousands of people) from various websites who troll/grief the internet looking for amusement from it. Sometimes this comes in the form of hacking, sometimes they're more creative and prankster-like. A few of Anonymous's acts have spilled over into the real world and they've even pranked a few celebrity's like Tom Green and bankrupted the former internet radio show host and white supremacist, Hal Turner. Sometimes they have a good reason for attacking people, but most of the time that reason is because doing so will be funny. They can get away with whatever the hell they want on the Internet because they have their anonymity and there's so many of them and they know it. This makes the best way of fighting them not to fight them. Of course Anonymous is mostly comprised of college age computer geeks but they've got people all over the world of just about every race, gender, and age.

And so began Anonymous's grudge against Scientology. The opening shot was a DDOS (denial of service) attack against Scientology's website which managed to take it off line. That wasn't enough for Anonymous however and something really interesting happened. On February 10th Anonymous took to the streets in the real world, protesting the church of Scientology world-wide, donning V for Vendetta style Guy Fawkes masks in most locations to protect their anonymity while speaking out against Scientology. The crazy group of Internet griefers had manifested themselves in the real world. In only two weeks the power of Internet communication and organization had launched a worldwide campaign. This has now become a real war. Anonymous peacefully attacked every corrupt facet of the Church of Scientology all because Scientology couldn't keep Tom Cruise's giant mouth shut. The protests were peaceful and a complete success. The old-school protesters were amazed at this new army's formation over night. I have to admit, it was nice to see people in my generation stand up for something even if there are better things to protest than Scientology.

Unfortunately Anonymous is known to get bored, that is unless Scientology continues to provoke them and thus continues to make Anonymous laugh. For the first time in Scientology's history they had nothing to litigate, nothing they could counter-attack. I don't know what repercussions all of this will have, as Internet culture is a strange thing to outsiders and seeing it appear outside the Internet is nothing short of a coming cultural revolution. The Internet is changing society in the same way that television changed it before that, and radio before that. All I know is that I'll be eagerly watching.

Fight Anonymous, for everlasting peace!

Obama vs. Clinton: We're All Screwed

"Super Tuesday" is tomorrow, that means over twenty states will be voting in their primaries, making me feel a little helpless in Pennsylvania since ours isn't until April. You see PA actually decided to follow the rules of the Democratic convention and not move their primary up, thus keeping its delegates, while states like Florida thought they could get away with it and that their delegates will be counted anyway. Let's just say there's going to be a lot of drama at the convention this year when that issue comes into play.

In any case while McCain picks up steam surprisingly, (though a McCain win in November would mean at least four more years in Iraq) Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton are duking it out over every issue including the incredibly stupid issue of race that Mr. President Clinton decided to bring up. I wonder if he was trying to sabotage Hillary or something with that one.

The election is months away but with the election coverage and the primaries every other day it feels like it's already here. The only problem is it's more like Democrats vs. Democrats than Republican's vs. Democrats. There's one serious problem that the Democratic party has always had that causes Republicans to win elections. They just can't get along. There's so many different sects of liberalism and not all of them look favorably at one another. We've got Hillary representing white elitism and the promise of returning to the Clinton years and Obama representing change in government and overcoming racial prejudice and stereotypes.

Then we have the Republicans, all of which the same kind of old white men who've run this country forever and I don't know if the United States is ready or willing to change that any time soon. Sure the Republicans have taken a lot of serious pot-shots at each other but the war between Obama and Clinton is ridiculous. They're going to tear each other limb from limb until the Republicans don't even need to dig dirt because the Democratic party did all the digging for them.

Obama is popular. Clinton is not popular but people trust in her experience. I've met a lot of people who vehemently hate Clinton though they can never give me a rationale explanation as to why. It's always some crack about her being a woman or that "Something about her just bothers them." Obama haters are usually on the Republican side, with comments as stupid as "because he's black" or "his name sounds Muslim." What infuriates me is I truly believe that Americans will place their votes based on reasons like these no matter what happens between now and November.

Though the Democratic National Convention isn't until the end of August we'll at least be closer to seeing who the candidates will be for president, and I sincerely hope that the race isn't even close. One of them needs to be knocked out, and considering both Obama and Hillary are fine candidates who would be serving their party better by complimenting one another instead of flaming each other on camera, I don't give a damn who wins and who loses. All that matters is the Democrats stop shooting spitballs at one another if they want to win an election for a change. The abysmal track record of the new Democratic majority congress certainly isn't going to help them out.

Faux News: Video Game Sex

I think this video pretty much speaks for itself. Fox News shows again and again why it's a bad idea to have a news source that fails to be objective. Everything about this "report" or "debate" or whatever you want to call it is misinformation charged with group think and school yard bullying. They invite one person who actually knows what's going on and do nothing but bash him and not let him get a word in.

I don't even really care about the game in question, Mass Effect, but it's the way that Fox News handles itself while pretending to be a serious news network that makes my blood boil. First of all Mass Effect's sex scenes are hardly the "full frontal nudity" that Fox News would like everyone to believe it is. They act like the game, which is a sci-fi space opera role-playing game revolves around the sex while most players will get through the game without even running into it.

There are a few things that really jump out at me with this video. The first is that they really never even consider opinions that are against their own. None of them have played the game or even understand video games (Mass Effect never objectifies women and in fact you can play as one). They believe that the video game market is still solely dominated by adolescent males which is untrue as more females are getting into video games and other generations, like mine for instance, who grew up with them are still playing them. They completely ignore the child-lock out feature of the X-Box 360 which will prevent children from playing mature rated games, and they also ignore the ESRB ratings completely. Why is it that we let rated R movies get away with horrible depraved things but when a video game has a M rating, one which means nobody under 17 should be playing, all of a sudden that rating doesn't mean anything?

The most cutting line comes at the end when there's a halfway intelligent comment about how at the end of the day it's the parent's responsibility to prevent their children from playing games that will be harmful for them, which is answered with, "Unfortunately." So there you go. Conservatives have admitted on live TV to being bad, lazy parents.

God forbid if these people ever found out what would happen if their children typed the word "tits" into Goolge Image Search.

Giant Robot Review: Tetsujin 28 (2004)

Giant robots started as alien threats or destructive weapons in pulp science fiction stories. This all changed in the sixties with Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28 (literally Iron Man 28). In the West most people would more readily recognize the name of this robot as "Gigantor." This time the robot wasn't the villain, but a super hero, controlled by a young boy who worked to defeat evil robots and other various threats to peace. Thus Tetsujin 28 launched the genre we all know as giant, super robots.

In 2004 a 26 episode series was produced in the same vein as the original series. Unlike the 80's remake that I know and love which was more of a re-imagining of the original, this series would stick close to the original manga, and use all of the admittedly dated original designs and the original story. When Tetsujin 28 was originally brought to the States as Gigantor, the story was completely changed since it involved a post WWII Japan and didn't really show the West in a positive light.
The new Tetsujin 28 series makes it across the ocean in an era where we all have the Internet so you can't lie to us and we live in a culture where censorship isn't quite as prevalent as it used to be. As such it's untouched and in its original form. The story takes place in 1955, the end of American occupation and the start of Japan's rising new economy. It's interesting to watch this show simply because you're watching post WWII Japan from their perspective and you meet all sorts of characters with different ideologies about the war, and the new era of peace. Interestingly enough though, you never hear the word "atomic bomb" muttered even once though the bombings of Tokyo play a role in the story.

That post war theme is at the core of Tetsujin 28. The early episodes deal with Tetsujin's sudden appearance which explains how it was a secret Japanese weapon developed for use against the United States before the end of the war. At the same time new dastardly secrets and immorally created weapons of mass destruction are uncovered and while people debate over whether Tetsujin is an anachronistic weapon no longer needed in the current Japanese society or a tool that can help Japan's rise, it's put to use to put Japan's other dark secrets of WWII back to rest. The debate of what a weapon is, and if weapons can be used for good or evil purposes is also a major part of the story, and you get the feeling that they're probably talking about the atom bomb here. Japan is portrayed as a nation confused about it's identity, its place in the word, and it's people are justifiably afraid of weapons that could bring even more pain to their defeated country.
The hero is Shotaro Kaneda who is forced to control Tetsujin, the creation of a father that he never knew. Shotaro is portrayed as maybe a bit too perfect in terms of personality as he's a "genius boy detective." He is however, fallible, and makes rash decisions that a young and confused boy his age would make. Tetsujin is practically defeated as many times as he succeeds and Shotoro is locked in a constant moral struggle over whether Tetsujin should be used in combat at all. One thing he becomes certain about is that weapon or not, Tetsujin is the only thing that's left of his family. The supporting characters and villains are all excellent as well, constantly shifting sides and motives as situations change and battles are won and lost. The series is directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa who is also responsible for the anime classic Giant Robo which itself is nothing more but a gigantic tribute to Mitsuteru Yokoyama's creations, including Tetsujin 28. As such anime fans who have seen Giant Robo will see a lot of familiar faces in this, like the pink jacket and fedora wearing Kenji Murasame. The show moves at a decisively slower pace than Giant Robo, but much of the same melodramatic tone and insane plot twists that made Giant Robo so popular is present here. In fact you'll probably have a few deja vu moments in this if you've seen Giant Robo.

The animation style as mentioned before is a retro art design taken straight from the original from the 60's. I've heard a lot of complaints about this, but it's beautifully animated, and personally I prefer the cartoony old-style of anime to the generic look of today's shows. If you don't like the retro look then this will be a problem for you, but for me it's one of the reasons I wanted to see this series. Giant Robo has the same look, though it's not animated quite as well as that even though it's several years newer. They weren't trying to go over the top and I think they did a good job of keeping the classic integrity of the original.
The opening story arcs really set things up for things to come, with the first half of the show dealing with the secrets and tragedies from the war that are still lurking around, threatening to slow or stop the progress of post war Japan. The second half of the show deals with new threats, outside influence and competing economies with groups that threaten to reignite war, or possibly destroy the entire world itself with Japan's most secret of WWII weapons. The show lags a bit in the middle, with filler episodes that both introduce and kill a baddie in one half-hour. The show picks up again at the end and relentlessly throws drama onto poor Shotatro, perhaps a little too thickly. After that the plot twists and bends until it builds up to the final encounter, and the ultimate fate of Tetsujin.

If you're here for mindless giant robot action, there are better places to look. The action that we do get is excellent and well animated, but the action sequences are few and far between compared to some other shows. Tetsujin 28 is also from a time before robots had all sorts of powerful and exciting weapons so lots of hands on metal crunching is involved. The robots are also all admittedly ridiculous looking, including Tetsujin, but that's part of the charm especially when you consider these robots are being built in 1955 and they should look ridiculous.
It's not the greatest anime ever, but if you were a fan of Giant Robo you should find a lot to like here. It's a fitting tribute to the original boy and his robot show that was the basis of inspiration for an incalculable amount of fiction including things like the absolutely excellent Iron Giant. It's so important that Akira, one of the most important manga and anime works ever is basically one giant homage to Tetsujin 28. If you were ever wondering about the origin of giant robots but you find the old show a bit too corny to stomach this might be a good show to look at. The story that hooks you with its lovable characters, twisting plot line, and post WWII drama from the perspective of Japan was enough to keep me watching and the giant robots and science fiction themes just wound up being a nice bonus.

Even though it's slow at times I think this is a real A-list anime that everybody has overlooked because they want their shows with the generic mass produced modern look that made anime popular here in the United States, or maybe they just thought this was another generic mecha show. I think if it would've been shown on TV here that it probably would've gotten a cult following like The Big O. Either way it was enjoyable enough for me to marathon all day and even though I don't think it's as good as or as important as its predecessor, Giant Robo, the new Tetsujin 28 is a fitting tribute to its late creator, and a look at historical aspects of Japan that you don't often hear about, or want to hear about, here in the United States.

I give it an 8.5 out of 10