The Gamer’s Litter Box

They’re not panties, so I’m not embarassed to show them off!

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I had the same reaction as the male kid watching how awesome Hiiragi is. Plus she totally sticks up for gamers too!

The space opera anime parody at the end was made of all sorts of win.

Tonight’s episode of Endless Eight sees Kyon failing to stop Haruhi repeating the summer. AGAIN. That means next week will be Endless Eight. AGAIN. Next week’s episode will make it the 6th episode dedicated to Endless Eight. Will it be the last? Who knows.

I can’t imagine any producer or studio ballsy enough to reanimate the same episode 6 freaking times (or to be exact, 5 times since the gang doesn’t realize it until the 2nd episode). I’ll be both impressed and disgusted if they actually go and do a whole 8 episodes of the same story. It’d be worse than a standard Naruto recap episode. But with the new Summer episodes already out, I already have better things to watch. Let me know when they finally break this ridiculous time loop.

A bloody mess in more ways than one.

Where do I start? The wooden acting? The Engrish lines? Poorly edited fighting and story scenes? The incredibly obvious CG blood and monsters? Or the stupifying ending that left half the audience speechless? It’s all of them, really. Continue Reading »

I’m a guy but when I saw the AMAZING kissing scene, I squealed like a fangirl. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

EDIT:: Someone made an animated GIF version of the kiss. It’s small, but you can feel the sensuality and passion behind the kiss. It’s probably one of the best kissing scenes in anime. Period.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9839/1238008109187.gif

Busy weekend as I attended two anime and game events - the Anime Comics Games Convention event at Tropican City Mall, and Hotlink Games and Anime Festival at Berjaya Times Square. I’m pretty tired and I’ve a backlog of work to sift through in the office, so I probably won’t be posting here until the end of the month.

Although the walk-in crowd at ACGC Tropicana wasn’t that great, I found it a lot more varied and interesting compared to the Hotlink Games and Anime Festival at Berjaya. Actually, the “anime” part at the Hotlink event was erroneous because I didn’t see any related anime events or activities there, except for a couple hired cosplayers and the cosplay competition on the 2nd day, which I didn’t attend. It was cool to see the Malaysia-Singapore matchup at the Sudden Attack booth though.

Sometimes I can’t help but admire the endless energy that cosplayers seem to have for their series and craft. I can’t see myself exhibiting the same enthusiasm, like going on stage to do the Caramelldansen performance when the song plays. Probably I’m just an oldfag who can’t adapt to the new generation of anime and videogame fans.

I was right. Just got the press release earlier today. The new series, called Fullmetal Alchemist - Brotherhood, will be broadcast weekly on Fridays 8:30 p.m. from April 10. The regional broadcast will come with English and Chinese subtitles.

Press release after the jump!

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I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately (just yesterday I watched The International) and the latest one to get my attention is the upcoming premiere of LaMB, which will be broadcasted on Animax-Asia this March 24th. Animax has been hyping LaMB quite a bit as it’s the company’s first high definition animated film. Not only that, the script was prepared by one of the finalists of the Animax 2007 Pan-Asia Animation competition heralding from the Philippines while its production was done by Singaporean studio Peach Blossom Media. Earlier this evening, some media and invited guests got a sneak peek of the movie before it premieres across the region next week.

In general, I think the film was okay. Not spectacular, but okay. I like the story and although the script has a familiar ring of protagonists finding love and redemption after a tragic accident, the movie was still entertaining. But its really short screen time (approximately 45 minutes!) didn’t allow the characters’ backgrounds and story world of LaMB to be fully fleshed out. Yes, viewers who want more information on the world of Ceras can visit the official website to view the web manga. But how many will do so? Most viewers would straight away watch the movie first.

I also have some qualms about the animation quality in LaMB. LaMB’s art style uses a combination of 3D graphics and Flash animation; for the most part of the show, the art style works to paint a believable sci-fi world. However at times, the characters’ animations looked jerky and unnatural, especially when the characters are doing a normal walk or are talking. I don’t believe the jerky animation in LaMB is due to the limitations of Flash - I’ve seen some fantastic Flash animations on Newgrounds, and even on some local cartoon TV series using Flash. Perhaps the studio isn’t that experienced with handling realistic character movements in animated films? Furthermore for a “HD” animated film, the visuals in LaMB looked grainy than sharp. I think it’s because the visuals in LaMB aren’t optimized for cinema theatres.

The main characters’ voice work in LaMB is generally good, with Vaness Wu giving a solid performance as Jack Grisworld. I can’t really say the same about the peripheral characters such as the various soldiers, scientists, and even Keiko’s parents as their dialogue sounds uninspiring. Later on in the film, there is a major battle scene which felt odd to me because both fighters don’t utter a single word. I understand that their characters aren’t allowed to speak, but couldn’t they grunt or cry out in pain as they trade blows? Or maybe a little dialogue to show their motivations for fighting? The near silence during the fighting scene felt quite weird to witness in the theatre.

This is not to say that LaMB is a bad movie. The story in LaMB is good, and the voice acting (sans the peripheral characters) were solid. The 3D visuals were adequate but the animation could definitely use some improvement. If Animax-Asia were to broadcast another locally-produced animated film, I’d defintely watch it. Hopefully the premiere of LaMB this March 24th will spearhead the development of more cross-regional productions.

The main website for DaiCon has gone LIVE. What’s DaiCon? It’s the brainchild of the EMINA club, the same group of people who brought the GACC in MMU Melaka, which saw two notable seiyuus such as Masakazu Morita (voice of Kurosaki Ichigo of Bleach) paying a visit to Malaysia and giving a Q&A session to anime fans.

Will DaiCon be any different? Inviting a special VIP to the event? Perhaps. I’ll leave it to the organizers to reveal it themselves.

DaiCon Main Website

Most people know that anime satellite TV network Animax-Asia will be doing a simultaneous broadcast for Leaf’s Tears To Tiara on 6th April 2009. But apparently Animax-Asia will also be broadcasting a new series premiering this April. It’s not a simultaneous broadcast, but it will be released on the same week that the series broadcasts in Japan. And they’re billing it as “The Most Anticipated Anime of 2009“.

Most anticipated anime of 2009? Hmm…amongst the Spring 2009 lineup, the most likely candidate would be the new Fullmetal Alchemist. I wouldn’t put it against them since FMA is crazy popular here and Animax-Asia has broadcasted FMA before.

If not FMA, then possibly “rerun” episodes of Haruhi Suzumiya. Or maybe even Chi’s Sweet Home. lol