Skip Beat!

Todays review is going to be a short one because I actually watched this anime months ago and just never got around to reviewing it. But I can still remember the important bits like whether or not I liked it and what it was about...mostly. For all you busy interwebbers who popped onto the site during a 15 minute smoke break my feelings toward the anime are summed up quite nicely in the following picture from Skip Beat! (what's with all these animes having exclamation marks in their titles anyway?). Most of the way through I felt like the guy on the right; relaxed and pleased. But then when the show ended I felt like the girl on the left; surprised, disgusted, frustrated and confused. To find out what went wrong we'll have synopsize the plot (is synopsize a real word? Don't know, don't care). 
*Needless to say there be spoilers ahead*

At the start the girl on the left is best friends with some jerkoff who's hoping to be a famous singer (or actor or something; it was never clear and time has not improved it). Now when I say "best friend" I mean it in the anime sense whereby they grew up together and she nurtures him as a motherly figure whilst harboring secret desires to marry him. Unfortunately for her the guy is well aware of this and instead of reciprocating said feelings he takes advantage of her and utilizes her like an unpaid maid. That is, until she overhears him carelessly affirming this to his manager. So she snaps and swears revenge, declaring that one day she will outshine him and use her possition of public adoration to crush him. And so the stage is set. Along the way she eventually gets signed up to a talent company and becomes something of a protege under the companies biggest star , who she had always unfoundedly hated because his popularity rivalled that of her now ex-best friend.

Phew well that was all hard to explain. Anyway, a sort of romantic mutual respect developes between the 2 pictured characters as the girl discovers a talent and love for acting that eventually replaces vengence as motivation. When she finally confronts her rival she manages to show that her passion has elevated her beyond his level and he starts to question his feelings for her. Then it's back to the romance plot for a few episodes and then bam! The end. Fuck you and thanks for watching.

It's actually quite forshadowing that the title has the word "skip" in it because that's exactly what the plot did, it skipped. It skipped right over the end like the budget evaporated and it left all the loose ends dangling depressingly in the cold, howling wind so that all our established good feelings towards the show can fashion them into a noose and hang themselves. Because lets not beat around the bush here, Skip Beat! is an anime for girls. Soppy old girly girls who've just been dumped and need something romantic to watch while they eat raw cookie dough and menstruate. But that said I was actually enjoying it. It wasn't fantastic but it was engaging and easy to watch alone in bed at the end of the day. But if you have an anime like this and slowly develope a romantic connection between 2 characters then you simply have to address it. It could end with a relationship, sex, marriage, mutual suicide, anything really just so long as the romance is fucking addressed and tied up in a conclusive package for us to take away. But Skip Beat! did not do this. Skip Beat! just stopped. I actually had to go online and check if I had all the episodes or whether there was going to be another season or a movie. But no, it was fucking over leaving me completely blueballed and wondering what I'd done to deserve this abandonment. But you know what Skip Beat? It's not me, it's you! Everything that happened was because of you. You took my heart for granted and then tossed me aside like a piece of trash, like I was nothing. You promised me the world and then you broke my fucking heart. But the joke's on you now Skip Beat! Because I'm going to post this blog and tell the whole world that you're nothing but a cock-teasing, heart-crushing whore!

de Blob 2

OK finally we're back on to gaming as a topic and boy am I long overdue for this one. de Blob 2, annoyingly spelt without the capitol letter, actually came out a little under a year ago and the sad part is I actually intended to throw up a review within a few weeks of release. But oh well.

de De Blob 2 is very much an "aimed at younger audiences" type game but is one that anyone can and will be able to enjoy. In what I can only assume is a jab at the HD greys and browns that plague current gen games, de Blob 2 see's you controlling a round, blobby character called Blob who is tasked with rubbing paint all over his naked body and jumping around atop buildings in order to restore life to a drab, enslaved world by making it colourful. I can't help but be reminded of the graffiti "street art" vs. the authorities "it's vandalism" battle that is being forever waged. In fact if you look into it too much the message of the game seems to be like that of a Public Enemy or Rage Against the Machine song; it is encouraging us to challenge "the man" in a soft-core military fashion. But instead of homemade explosives we have paint, colour and vibrancy.

Which brings me to another interesting gameplay/story point. Primarily the game is an action platformer with more than a slight hint of a sandbox in the levels. Throughout a level your allies, the Colour Underground, will give you a mission such as "clear out all the enemies from the area" or "free the population from their empty mindless existance." But more often than not they'll ask you to paint buildings, quite often a specific colour. Now hang on just a moment here. The whole game we're being told that making everything grey is boring and soul destroying and dictatorships are wrong and creativity is cool and all that shit. So then why is it that the game is stiffling my creativity and allowing me to only paint certain things a certain colour? Ok so maybe the colour underground aren't enslaving a city but surely I'm not the only one who detects a certain dictatorial hypocricy in the game.

 

But of course I'm being a bit dramatic about all this. At the heart of de Blob 2 is a core principal, "let's just chill-out and have some fun." And this is exactly what the game lets you do. It's cathartic to get home from a boring day at the office or school or whatever and lay down in a bean bag, flick on your lava lamp and play through an hour or 2 of de Blob 2. Saying that I don't recommend it for long sessions. This is not Skyrim and you will not enjoy playing it all day and night. It's an unwind game to be enjoyed in small managable bites with plenty of chewing between each mouthful. A level a day keeps the stress away. Because really if you do any more than a level in one sitting you'll become frustrated with the repitition. I mentioned a few missions above and really there's not a lot else the game will throw at you aside from the collectibles hidden in the levels. Of course the game manages to keep you engaged with the level and enemy designs and as you progress there will always be something new to see. Although I made light of the "paint everything" central game mechanic it is actually quite satisfying and well executed. The game has a dynamic soundtrack that will change slightly in style depending on what colour you're using and it actually does a lot to help you feel like you're changing and livening up the lifeless world at a relaxed pace.

There are unfortunately a number of frustrations in de Blob 2 though. Firstly, although the controls are mostly pretty good the jump can sometimes feel a little sticky and awkward and timing landings can be a nightmare at times. Although there is a definite aim at a younger audience in terms of humour and design (both of which are very much reminiscent of a Disney Pixar film) the difficulty is definately adequate enough to keep adults engaged. Probably the most fructrating aspect of de Blob 2 is its' odd choice of save system. In levels it uses the somewhat dated method of tracking checkpoints throughout a level that you return to when you die. When you lose all your lives it's game over and the level must be started over from scratch. As mentioned before this type of save system feels very dated and gets frustrating when youcruise through the beginning of a level over and over again just for the opportunity to try the bit you're stuck on again. But perhaps the weirdest design choice of all is this, you can revisit levels in order to find more collectibles etc but you will also have to redo the level. Everything you worked for, all the painting you did, it will all be undone. Which is an odd choice for a sandbox game that in would in general encourage the player to go back for the aforementioned collectibles. I can see why they did it, obviously there are some people who would like the opportunity to replay levels they've already finished, but why couldn't they have offered both options?

But at the end of the day de Blob 2 is fun and satisfying and it's unfortunate that Bluetongue, the Australian studio that developed it, was shut down a few months later. I've heard people complain about the time-limits in each level before but I never found that an issue as long as you're always moving it's easy to rack up heaps of extra time. Plus once all the main missions in the level are done you're given free reighn to explore before deciding to finally finish up. So I don't feel like that complaint is valid. So to wrap things up I'll close by saying that de Blob 2 is good and as it is multiplatform and can be easily bought at a bargain bin price it is well worth checking out.

The 2011 Highlights and Lowlights Reel

 
So now that 2011 has fucked off and died and 2012 has gracefully flown in through our open windows with chocolates and apologies; it seems only fair to look back at the crumpled mess that was 2011 and give a little Eulogy before dowsing it in petrol and burning it.

So you might have gotten the impression that 2011 wasn't the best year for me from my introduction there and you would mostly be correct. I'm not going to wollow in personal greivances here but you can be rest assured that I'm not the only one who's considering 2011 to be a write-off. So the year in general is getting a panning from me, but there have been some redeeming moments and I will do my absolute best to recover these memories and highlights from my New-Years-Eve-damaged brain.

Gaming in 2011
2011 was actually a pretty fantastic year for gaming in my opinion, although this was mostly the case in November which saw the release of Saints Row the Third, Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Rayman Origins. Of course there have been other good games released this year such as Dark Souls, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Xenoblade Chronicles (which I've yet to play in any appreciable amount).

But with highs come lows and some of gamings lows this year include the extremely slow start for the 3DS, which launched months before a good game was released for it, which turned out to be a remake anyway (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time). This was followed up by another remake of a N64 game, Lylatt Wars, which has been given the American title of Star Fox 64 3D which I refuse to acknowledge for a handful of reasons, only one of which is the extra difficulty in saying it. It wasn't until Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land came along that the 3DS has started looking like it might live up to expectations. But I'd like to make it known that if the 3DS actually takes off in the same way that the DS did before it it will be despite the 3D implementation rather than because of it. This is because 3D at best adds a few seconds here and there of immersion breaking gawking and at worst encourages lazy 3D ports of older games. But I haven't given up on the 3DS yet, especially with the promise of new offerings of Monster Hunter, Paper Mario and another installment in the "Tales of" series.

As it has been such a busy year for gaming recently I don't feel it would be fair to award game of the year seeing as how I haven't played a lot of the most recent releases. But having said that Skyward Sword, Skyrim and Dark Souls are actually looking like very strong contenders for the title. I might give you an update on this in the upcoming months.

Events of 2011
The events of 2011 are largely likely to be overlooked here but I feel a special mention ought to go out to all the dictators and "most wanted" type people who have been biting the dust this year. Even Kim Jong-il managed to pop off right at the end there just when we thought all our dictators were starting to look a little healthier. 

Another more personal event of this year was the eventual launch of another online project of mine with my dear friend Joey. That's right after what was probably about 6 months of talking about it Joey and I finally launched our podcast and after an unexpectedly positive response we have managed to post 2 more up with the promise of a fourth one soon. We even have a name, a homepage and a Facebook group now. As a result of the unexpected popularity of the Still Not Happy Podcast my posts here at Inifinite Possiblogities have been at an all time low, with 2011 seeing substantially less posts than any other years. Hopefully 2012 will prove to be the year of the comeback in many aspects of my life, with this blog being a hopeful candidate. This brings me to my next topic.


The Broken Promises of 2011
As a once eager and proud parent who has now grown tired and jaded (yes, even more so) I feel it only fair that I acknowlege some of the promises I've broken to my readers over the year. I've already apologized multiple times for breaking my "I'm gonna post every week" promises but there have been some actual topics and that I've mentioned that I've failed to implement at all. I never got around to attempting any of those joke homework projects, despite a small number of submissions from fans (thanks guys, you know who you are) for which I am a bit regretful. I still like the idea of it and if I had thought of it in 2007 and 2008 I probably would have made some regular segments for it. 


I also promised I'd review games such as de Blob 2, animes like Skip Beat and probably a bunch of other crap I don't even remember. I have decided to make amends and actually review, as best I can, both of these previously mentioned entities in my current "gotta make things right" blog-rush I promised in my previous post. 


Some Other Disappointments of 2011 That Aren't My Fault

• The Inbetweeners Movie never fucking came to a cinema near me and I've yet to watch it.
• Since last year when I declared how excited I was for it I have not heard a single fucking peep about the new series of The Games which will be set in London. Hopefully it's coming this year rather than disappearing.
• Although a fantastic game, Skyward Sword has some irritating padding in it. The worst offender at present is a Dragon that, despite recognising that you are indeed the chosen one who is in a rush to save the world, feels the need to send you on a stupid fetch quest to round up tadpoles. She also flooded the forrest to rid it of the monsters, which at best just introduced more irritating underwater monsters. Fucking idiot dragon bitch.

Some Pleasant Surprises of 2011

• When Bad Meets Evil finally released an album/EP after about 9 years of doing nothing together. Eminem and Royce da 5'9" really bring out the best in each other here and it's a fantastic recording to listen to.
• I discovered that a Haruhi Suzumiya movie existed and I watched it on DVD just a few weeks back. It is almost 3 hours of rock solid heart-warming, emotional anime brilliance and marks the high in what was already one of my absolute favourite anime series.
• Not wanting to get too bogged down in anime but an even more pleasant surprise this year was a short anime movie called 5 Centimeters Per Second. It was a brilliant and touching experience and given that is runs for just under an hour you have no fucking excuse not to watch it.

The Future is Looking Brighter (What I've Got My Eye on in 2012)
At the moment I'm very excited to see if the wasted potential in Final Fantasy XIII finally becomes realized in its sequel Final Fantasy XIII-2 which comes out in February. The Wii U has got me very interested and excited for whenever it comes out this year. The next and final season of Breaking Bad is due to some along mid 2012 and given that the series has never been anything other than excellent I have no reason to be anything other than excited. The previous season didn't even end on a massive fuckoff cliffhanger this time which was quite pleasing. Of course there are many games for 3DS as well as the other current gen consoles that I'm keen to see.

Other than that I'm keen to fix up the mess that my blog has become and keen to expand on the Still Not Happy Podcast with Joey. The rest of the year may just have to be a pleasant mystery. So I'd just like to wrap up by wishing you all a Happy New Year and all the best for 2012.

Anime Samplers - A Review of the Hyper Japan Special DVD

Now that I'm pulling double duties as a blogger and podcaster (here is an awesome link for sexy people http://thestillnothappypodcast.blogspot.com/ ) it seems reasonable to assume I might not get much time to tend to the needs of my Infinite Possiblogities fanbase. However it has been many months since my last post which is both ridiculous and unforgivable. Therefore I think it's only fair that I try and cram in as many posts as I feel I can get away with within the next week or so (remember when I used to update daily? Crazy times). First off the bat we have a review of the first episodes of six different anime series that I got for free with a special Japanese issue of Hyper Magazine. Now normally when I review anime and TV shows I like to review an entire season as a whole because I feel that reviewing such things on an episode by episode basis is very limiting and doesn't give much of an indication as to whether or not the series is worth your time. But unfortunately I don't have whole series here, just the first episodes. So my mini reviews will discuss what was experienced in the episode and whether or not I think the series has any potential to hold my interest. Who knows, I may even end up reviewing a whole series of one of these?

Freedom
Don't let the bland, uninspired name fool you, because Freedom actually IS bland and uninspired overall. The first thing I noticed was just how boring and dated the animation looked, which isn't normally something I pay any attention to so me noticing it and feeling the need to mention it should be taken seriously. But it didn't stop there because soon I actually found myself laughing at the facial expressions of the characters. Not only were they over the top but they were at times contextually inappropriate. Looks of shock would suddenly strike a characters face in the most mundane of situations. It's like the animators went to a lot of effort with the goal in mind to truely capture the essence of bad acting. I actually found it quite bizzarre. Storywise I was left mostly clueless which was only in part my fault for not paying attention. But from what I gather the story centers around a human colony living on the moon and futuristic car racing. It's one of those anime worlds where society as a whole seems built around a single hobby in the same vein as Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. It also has that typical anime knack for just dropping you into the deepend with the plot and setting and assuming you'll pick it up as you go along in the series. Which is fine assuming it's done well and has managed to engage you enough to keep watching. But Freedom did neither. I mentioned before that I didn't pay a lot of attention to what was going on and that was with good reason. The fact was I was bored. And being bored and unengaged in the first episode of an anime series would have to be the biggest con you could possibly give. As far as potential goes I don't see a whole lot and I certainly won't bother chasing up the rest of the series unless it comes highly recommmended from a small group of sexy, bikini clad women.

K-On!
This is actually not the first I'd heard of K-On! (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title) and I was actually relishing the opportunity to check out this anime. Whilst not exactly blowing my mind from the get go K-On! certainy shows some promise and it certainly shines like a star after Freedom. Storywise, K-On! is much more slow and deliberate; setting up relationships and developing characters from the beginning rather than making you feel like you may have actually missed the first few episodes by mistake (which is how Freedom felt). But despite this I understood the premise well and was left curious about where it will go.

Basically K-On! is about a group of school girls forming a band, only 2 of whom have any sort of established friendship beforehand. The band has 4 memebers, the enthusiastic initiator, her best friend who got dragged into it, the blonde chick without enough personailty to make me remember anything she said or did and the girl who can't play music but has comically been given the role of guitarist whilst she was searching for a club to join. As far as premises go it's not a lot but it's pretty solid and has the potential for comedy, drama as well as some slice-of-life-feel-gooderies. On top of that the soundtrack didn't seem half-bad either and considering it's a show about a high school band/music club it has a lot of potential to get better. Honestly, I'll probably check out the rest of it sometime soon.

Black Butler

Before I even begin talking about this one I want you to do something for me. I want you to consider that there is an anime series called Black Butler and just try and predict what kind of show it will be. Go on just try it.

Ok, well if you guessed it would be a creepy anime for goths about an effeminate but ruthless butler serving a pre-pubescent boy with mummy issues and a twisted moral compass then you get full points. You also get bonus points if you managed to guess that the show would also have some terribly painful comic relief support characters with the potential to ruin the whole damn show. Honestly I don't know why it is that any anime that sets out to be dark, sinister or even just intellectually stimualting they also feel the need to uncomfortably shoehorn in a bunch of irritating fuckwits to lighten the tone. Don't do it!

But that gripe aside the show seems like it might be ok, if a little sus at times. I mean just look at the pic on the right and tell me there isn't any paedophilia going on there. If that one pic isn't sus enough just google image the show and you'll see that the butler has this habit of suductively removing the white glove from his hand with his teeth. My podcasting pal Joey would have a field day with anyone unlucky enough to be caught watching this show around him. But I digress.

Ga Rei Zero
My initial thoughts of the show are exactly as follows "wow, this looks exactly like a scene from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. And so does that...and that. Oh wait the dialogue is shit and it has monsters in it, nevermind." Ga Rei Zero is another of those "what the fuck is happening?" animes that drop you right in the middle of the jargon and hopes you'll swim. But of all the animes on this DVD this is the one that left me the most confused. See the pic above and note the characters in it. I have never seen them before in my life. They weren't in the first episode (at least as far as I noticed). The characters I thought were the main characters in the first episode die at the end of it (pretty sure it doesn't count as a spoiler if it's the first episode hey). But other than looking like GITS and making me wonder what the hell just happened there is literally nothing compelling me to watch any more of this anime.

 

High School of the Dead
Another little activity for you. I want you to google image search this anime and find me a picture that isn't like the one above. There in an upskirt pantyshot literally the first minute of this anime. But given that it's a survival horror anime I can kinda let the odd bit of exposed flesh and breast wobble slide because it's what you would expect if a zombie epidemic broke out at a Japanese High School (where skirts are short and clothes are flimsy). Again I'd actually heard of this one before and was keen to see how it stacked up. And you know what it's actually pretty good. The plot is basically summed up in the name and it's got a nice balance of kick-arse action, drama and the necessary "what the fuck is going on?" factor that is actually appropriate in this case because this is the same question the characters are asking themselves. Of all the animes on this DVD this is the one I'm most keen to watch the rest of. Chicks' boobs jiggling about as they're kicking zombies in the head and exposing their underwear, sounds pretty good to me. Again, Joey will tease you for watching this, only this time it'll probably be worth it.

Rideback
Last on the DVD is Rideback. Rideback is about a girl who was an up and coming dancer following in her mothers footsteps until she tore a ligament and her life as she knew it ended. Whilst coming home from school or college or whatever one day she takes shelter from the rain in a shed where the "Rideback Club" assembles. A Rideback (pictured above) is a sort of transformer bike thing that can adopt a humanoid, bipedal stance. As the girl tries it out the Rideback kinda goes nuts and can't be stopped (for reasons that will probably be determined in episode 2) and whilst riding it's back (you ride on their back, Rideback, get it?) with dress billowing about in typical anime panty-flashing style she experiences the same joys she felt from dancing. That's pretty much all that happened in this episode but don't let that deter you. It may be a bit of a slow burner, especially when compared to everything else on this DVD, but its pace is perfect for the gentle human feel of the show and the gradual development of the characters. Nothing felt rushed or forced. Everything progressed naturally, which is a rare quality you often forget about until you experience it again. But what of the potential? Well that's actually an excellent question. The show really just ends with our heroine riding the Rideback through the air with a look of absolute joy across her face. I do want to know what happens next but to be honest I can't really tell what the series is going to do from here. The gentle pace and tenderness in the tone of the show certainly do a lot to recommend it and I'll definately check it out. But I can't really forsee what the overarching plot might entail and so the question of potential seems much vaguer to answer here.

So that wraps that up. Six different animes of varying genre and appeal, plus 20 "kick-ass anime trailers" that I really couldn'ty be arsed with. I expect maybe half of these will be blogged about again in much more detail at some point, perhaps I'll even refer back to what I said in this post. Anyway, that's one post down. Expect another one soon and keep your eye on this spot.