Just a Quick Christmas Message

So there I was innocently googling "Costume Quest" when I found this strange picture. I was simultaneously amused and disturbed; so naturally I felt that it belongs on Infinite Possiblogities. This isn't going to be much of a post, I'm a bit busy with family and friends right at this moment to give you a meatier one. But I have many ideas. So coming soon to Infinite Possiblogities...

1. A Review on Jungle Boy (a movie that came with a birthday card)
2. A Review on Resident Evil 5 (an inferior sequal to Resident Evil 4

Also I thought I'd mention that I discovered today that in 2011 the ABC will air a new series of The Games (my favourite Australian comedy ever, see an older post if necessary). This news caused my metaphorical vagina to moisten faster than your mum at an underwater Justin Timberlake concert.

Ikki Tousen: Battle Vixens

Japan loves underwear. Or to be a tad more specific Japan loves panties. The particular panties they like are the kind that have been lightly steamed by the body of a schoolgirl. Here's a fun fact for you that illustrates my point. Did you know that in Japan there are shops in which young girls can trade in their used undergarments for money so that any old stranger can buy them and do with them whatever they please? Well if you didn't know that then you sure are lucky you've got me around, slaving tirelessly on this blog to bring you all the must-have info of the world. I mention Japan's love of all things clinging to female genitalia because today's anime, Ikki Tousen: Battle Vixens, seems very keen to reward this love. Just take a look at the pictures I have provided. I hope you don't mind these sorts of images, because you'll be seeing a lot of them in this anime.

But there's more to Ikki Tousen than ass and titties. It actually has a decent story. It's basically about a bunch of fighters from rival schools who compete in a tournament in which there are basically no rules regarding torture and death. The story also tiptoes briefly around sexual abuse but we won't get too into that. Basically the main girl (the one on the left in the picture above) has some inner-dragon thing that all the other characters are either trying to unleash, repress or control. Ok so it's not really a fantastic, epic story or anything but I mostly liked the way it was handled. I actually wasn't entirely bothered by the upskirts and nudity because, let's face it, if half a dozen young, full breasted women are gonna fight each other in short school skirts then it would be kind of rediculous if you didn't see some bum hugging white panties. Actually, come to think of it, they're all wearing the exact same underwear. Ok so that's a bit hard to swallow. Besides, what if I have a fetish for a different style or colour? But I digress. The fact is that the semi-nudity actually makes sense and for the most part actually fits in with the situations.

The lame thing about Ikki Tousen: Battle Vixens is that for all it's shameless upskirts it's actually a pretty enjoyable anime series; which is lame because people will inevitably see images like the ones above and disregard it. It's this well balanced blend of action, narrative and rediculously comic soft pornography that somehow manages to make a consistent, decent series.That said, it's not a classic by any means. The story is consistent and makes sense but the whole thing ends up going basically nowhere. Characters have learnt nothing, the status quo is restored and the world carries on unchanged. I understand that there are further series and OVA's of Ikki Tousen so perhaps the story is yet to fully develope? I certainly feel that a few character relationships left a lot to be desired. But you know what? At the end of the day I don't feel like an anime like this really wants serious critical treatment. I mean it's definately supposed to be rediculous; the boobs make *boing* noises for fucksake. So in the end I guess what I'm trying to say is that Ikki Tousen might actually be worth checking out. You'll probably feel a little confused as to why you don't hate it, I know I am.

Undead Rant

You know how the elderly are often stereotyped as grumpy, disconnected and bored with everything? Well sometimes I wonder if I'm already a little too close to that. Well something that's been bringing me closer to that ultimate destiny recently is the undead. Oh how I'm sick of hearing about the undead. We have vampires in every teen romance novel, we have a zombie mode in every video game and I'm altogether over hearing about it. I'm sick of vampires being sexy, I'm sick of zombies being the cause of the appocalypse and I'm sick of nerds getting excited about pretending they'll survive it. So I thought what I'd do in todays blog is vent a little of my annoyance and explore the stupidity of the undead mythologies.

The Name
The first thing to ever bug me about the undead is that they're called "the undead." Let me explain to you how the English language works people. When the prefix "un" is placed before a word is juxtaposes the meaning of the original word so that the new word means the opposite. So then the word "undead" would literally mean "not dead". Now this in itself is fine because zombies seem to posses very basic signs of life and Vampires are able to pick up chicks at bars so it's easily argued that both of these beings are not actually dead. But then comes the problem, neither are we. Regular, 9 to 5 workin' John and Jane who deliver your post and have sex with the highschool swim team, none of them are dead either. So is everyone  not buried or cremated also "undead"? That doesn't really work does it. A better word for it would be "semidead". Semi, for all you dickhead writers out there who can't fucking get it right, meaning partly. THAT one makes sense. They're not quite dead or alive but exist in a weird grey area. Easy.

The next thing that pisses me off about the name is that I can't count the number of times that vampires have said the words "I'm already dead." Excuse me. No you fucking aren't. Dead people can't be arrogant, tall-talkers for one. Vampires can be killed too, by stakes and what not. If there's one situation in which you can NOT be killed it is if you are already dead. But apparently vampires, who are supposedly already dead, can die. So let me get this straight. The undead, are named in a way that literally means they AREN'T dead, are actually already dead but that doesn't mean much because they can still die. Die, die again. Maybe all this is just a scam on the part of the vampires so that they can collect 2 lots of life insurance? Besides which vampires all seem to "outlive" human beings, which is something the mopier ones often sulk about. I mean it's rediculous, are they dead or not? Try and get it together people.

The Zombie Appocalypse
I realise that by this point in my post I haven't given much attention to zombies. Want to know why that is? It's because zombies are fucking boring. I have no idea why or how people manage to talk about zombies so fucking much. Here's what they do. They shuffle. They kill. They sometimes gurgle out a single word. How the hell are people able to go on and on about them? At least vampires are trying to be interesting. But the main reason zombies are talked about so very, very is because the entire Geek Kingdom (ie, the internet) is obsessed with discussing the Zombie Appocalypse.

The annoying thing about the zombie appocalypse is how seriously it's taken. Everyone acts like it's going to happen like it's the Y2K all over again. Nerds actually have models for how the zombie appocalypse will play out depending on factors like the weather and the method in which a person becomes a zombie. It's pretty stupid. I can see the fun in pretending like it's the end of days and you just wanna live a little while longer in your stronghold, but actually making predictions about something that is never, ever, going to happen seems like a perfectly good way to get institutionalized. Let me put things in perspective for you. You know how people think that dice-based role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are for losers? Well thoroughly planning how best to survive the zombie appocalypse is for the alpha-losers. The losers who other losers bully. And let me just leave this with you to think about. If you can't even function in human society without having your lunch money stollen how the fuck are you going to survive wave after wave of mindless killing machines who can smell you sweating into your Batman underpants?

The Undead VS Daylight
This one only really starts to unravel as you think about it. In many fictional universes the undead, be it zombie, vampire or werewolf (assuming they count, I don't see how they're any less dead than a vampire anyway), are often tranformed or killed in some way by sunlight. Now watch as I suck the fun out of this one.

Vampires usually only come out at night to avoid exposure to sunlight which would severly weaken and eventually kill them. Assuming that this is true, why is it then that moonlight doesn't do the same thing? Moonlight, after all, is just the exact same sunlight being bounced back to earth off the moon. Perhaps you could argue that reflected light doesn't have the same effect, which is fine I suppose except I'm pretty sure I've seen mirrors used to reflect light at vampires to weaken them.

Werewolves have the same sort of issue. Why does the full moon trigger their transformation? again, it's just reflected light. Perhaps you could argue that the other lunar phases do not have sufficient light to triiger the tranformation? But then why do they not transform in sunlight?

The problem with almost every one of my complaints is that they're basically all based upon anchient folk laws and the like, back when people didn't understand things like the moon or death. But I don't see why we have to continue with these laws in our current fiction. People defend these stupid old mythologies and thing like they're fact. You know how in the Twilight Saga vampires sparkle in the light instead of dying and everyone teases it saying how they're "not real vampires." Well here's a news flash dickheads, there ARE no real vampires. Even if sparkling teenage hearthrob vampires is extremely lame at least it's new. At least it's not just retreading the same old nonsensical shit and acting like changing this arcaic mythology would somehow be an affront to mankind. You'd be forgiven for thinking I hate the undead, but that's not quite true. I just hate the way they're getting treated these days. People have stopped being creative with them and are just happy to throw them all in together or randomly shoehorn them into some irrelevent story or game. It's the laziness of it that annoys me. Put in zombies and your game will sell. Put in vampires and you're teen romance novel will sell off the back of Twilight. Fuck you all. How about this for an idea? Get creative and do something new. Make your vampires weak against musicals, make your werewolves temperature sensitive, make your zombie hordes unable to go outside in the rain. Just do something fucking new.

Beautiful Katamari

A good long while ago I reviewed We Love Katamari on the Playstation 2. You might remember it. You might remember me liking the game. You might also remember that post being a bit shit. I am aware as much as any of you that sometimes my posts are a little bit on the dull side, especially when it comes to things I actually like. Beautiful Katamari (one of the games in the Katamari series don'tcha know?) gave me the opportunity to re-examine the Katamari formula, only this time much better. So let's get into the review shall we? Royal Rainbow!

The story begins with The King of the Cosmos on holiday with his family. Because the King of the Cosmos is both extremely powerful and extremely careless he manages to destroy the universe in a game of tennis. Game, set and match universe. So the King does what any all powerful universal collosus would do and gets his puny son to roll shit up into balls so he can hurl them into orbit and declare all extraterrestrial bodies replaced. You might think this sounds lazy of him but oh no, the King keeps hard at work harshly critiquing your efforts and punishing you when you fail to roll quick enough. But in all honesty the King of the Cosmos is a lovable character. Sure, he's out of touch, mentally inbalanced and destructively irresponsible. But you'll love him anyway.

Gameplay wise Beautiful Katamari is basically the same as any Katamari game. You roll shit into a ball. The ball gets bigger. Bigger balls roll bigger shit. The King belittles your efforts. Repeat. But this formula, although simple, manages to stay very refreshing and addictive with the use of clever level design and some interesting rules. There's one level where you have to quickly roll up a Katamari that is 10 000 degrees celcius by rolling hot things and avoiding cold things. Of course, Katamari logic dictates that hot and cold things are often abstract and confusing. For example a penguin counts as a cold thing and chili sauce counts as a hot thing. I'm pretty sure a penguine would burn better than a glass jar, but who am I to argue? Katamari logic can take a bit of getting used to, especially when you're trying to decide whether you are yet big enough to roll something up. There have been times where I was marching proudly along, rolling up all the puny objects in my way only to have some piddley little knick knack push me away like a repulsed blind date as you lean in for a goodnight kiss. Apparently size matters with katamari's too, but at least katamari's can grow without surgery.

Although the design sounds simple it always manages to stay fresh and fun. The mere act of rolling up something new is rewarding in itself, in a sort of Pokemon, gotta roll 'em all, kind of way. The game keeps track of your collection of crap, filing it away neatly and giving you an idea of how much of the world has been left unabused by your presence. The way a Katamari handles also feels right. You can start off a level speedily rolling up thumbtacks and gum saving up for being able to roll up that dogshit that's been giving you trouble and end up later on in the level slowly ploughing through cars, people and even buildings in the same slow, lumbering, unstoppable manner of Godzilla. People even panic and attempt to flee from your path. There's something very primally thrilling about seeing some jerk kicking and screaming as they are rolled around into other people. The levels are relatively short, usually clocking up about 6 mins. But you will find yourself replaying them over and over trying desperately to earn yourself a perfect score from the King. After doing so you unlock Eternal Mode for that level, allowing you to roll freely around it without a time limit. There's something extremely cathartic about toiling for hours for the perfect score and then going back to the level in Eternal Mode to reduce the level to an empty room or a flat area where a great city once stood.

The game still has it's flaws of course. Aside from the aforementioned Katamari logic to get your head around there's the camera. There are many occassions where I have done something I regretted because I couldn't actually see where I was going or even where my katamari was. Sometimes when your Katamari is big it obscures your vision and you find yourself crashing into unseen, mystery objects. As well as that I have found myself getting unfairly stuck because my katamari is just big enough to get wedged into some tight nook that is time consuming and damaging to get out of. Although these few flaws can be frustrating they certainly aren't dealbreakers. Katamari is as fun as it ever was.

I've heard some people complain that the Katamari games haven't changed at all. Whilst this is most certainly true I don't really care for a number of reasons. First of all, these games are so unique and fun that having more of them is definately good. Secondly, almost every katamari iteration appears on a different console, allowing more players to enjoy the game. Now that Katamari is on the Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP and iPhone I don't see any reason why you, the reader, can excuse yourself from trying a Katamari game out. It may not sound like much and may look outlandishly camp and Japanese but just trust me, it's fantastic. The only reason I'm not playing it right now instead of blabbing on and on about it is because my fucking poorly designed Xbox 360 Pro has fucked up and is yet to be replaced by a new Xbox 360 Slim. But I've already ranted about how the Xbox 360 is shit. I bet if you opened one up it's probably being run on one of those potato batteries kids make in school. Yeah, that's it. Microsoft enslaves children to build Xbox 360's out of vegetables and chicken wire. Sigh...I miss Katamari.