Insan, Spirit of Chaos

She hovered upside down on the ceiling, watching the girl lazily in her shadow form. She reached out slowly, drawing all of the fingers of her right hand but her pointer and thumb into her palm. 'bang' dead. She rotated slowly in a circle, 'laying back' against the top of the room 'bang' 'bang' she smiled. The girl was far too concentrated for her own good. Insan flexed her transparent shadowy hand, admiring it. Hmm. She really did need a new body soon. Perhaps... Something more divine? She smirked, staring at the angel below her with something resembling affection. She had better watch those pretty little wings of hers. As Katie left, Insan billowed down to the floor and collected herself there. With a silky swipe of her fingers, the light sources were blacked out. Maybe she could to just a little bit of hunting.

Symbol of Balance

No Review Today, Instead a Little Something

Hello everyone as the title says there isn't a review today, but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about you all. Today I'll talk about a game that I've started to play, and I'll do a review on it a little later.

The game is Gunz 2: The Second Duel, and for those who aren't aware it's an MMO. For those who are still unaware it's based on the original Ijji game, Gunz. Now I started playing it because a friend of mine convinced me to, against my better judgement and I found that I was pleasantly surprised. The game wasn't as bad as I thought.

The original game wasn't too bad to be honest but it had a huge problem known as K-style which was a glitch with the blocking system that allowed for some pretty crazy tendinitis inducing game play. My real issue with this is that the original game was as much about guns as 3rd century bar brawl.

The new game has improved on this by fixing the glitch and trying to build a new and interesting system that doens't have to rely on it.

All in all it's looking good for now, but isn't worth putting any money into.

Anime Review - Toaru Majutsu No Index

Toaru Majutsu No Index

Hello everybody, Typhoon LordGrief here with another anime review. Today as you can tell from the title I'm going to be reviewing Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index).

Synopsis

Academy city population 2.3 million, what makes it unique is that 80% of the population consist of students. It is the focal points of multiple high education programs/centers. Within this city there reside special humans who are known as Espers, Espers are people who have gained a supernatural ability either naturally or via a mixture of drugs and sense alteration. This city is known as the city of science and it is home to many powerful individuals.

Within this city there is a young man named Touma. He is a high school student who is thought to have absolutely no abilities, what makes him remarkable is that his right hand is capable of canceling all other esper abilities on touch. This is made apparent from the very first episode when he is shown being able to fight against the third most powerful person in the city without receiving any harm. One day he opens up his window to find a girl in white hold trimmed robes passed out on the rail to his balcony. He discovers her name is Index, and that she is in possession of 103,000 grimoires ( powerful magic manuals, EX. Necronomicon). She also tell him that she is being chased by powerful magicians who aim to steal her knowledge and use it to change or destroy the very world.

From this moment on Touma is plunged into a world of magic, science, and religion. His only goal is to protect Index and everyone from the suffering that is constantly around them.

Story [ 6 / 10 ]

The story is good and is paced well enough, it's often disjointed but that's mostly because they don't give too much exposition (which is a good thing!). The setting to the story is rather rich and I find myself drawn in by my curiosity. Sadly the story has to lose several points due to a problem that a lot of animes have. NOBODY DIES! I'm sure that's a huge spoiler but it's actually really frustrating to me when an anime has a perfect moment where if a character died it would have a genuine impact on both the characters and the watcher. Instead it ruins those moments by having the character live on. Heck, I'd even take thinking the character is dead for an episode or two but it doesn't even wait that long to reveal that, what a surprise, they lived.

As a side note the story goes over a lot of the science vs religion aspects which I don't mind that much but are overplayed in real life let alone in anime.

Art [ 9 / 10 ]

This is where I feel the show really picks up from a lot of animes I watch. They have good shading and good animation for the characters. They don't overkill it with an acid wash technicolour and for that I thank them. I found the art to be extremely appealing, though it's not the absolute best.

Sound [ 3 / 10 ]

The music sadly doesn't stand out too much to me. It does it's job whenever it needs to and it fits the moment correctly but it isn't something that I'd associate with the anime.

Character [ 5 / 10 ]

This is where the show gets hit or miss. The main character has to have a rigid personality though he actual does start to develop after two seasons. The full main cast of character are good although some of them are annoying. It's one of those animes where I felt much more connection and development from the support cast and the side characters. The villains are fairly blank slates, and bothered me due to the fact that all except for maybe two of them had some dark past that made them hate science or whatever at the given time.

Enjoyment [ 10 / 10]

I vastly enjoyed this anime, I liked it so much I shotgunned the two seasons and even watched the DVD specials. It is really fun to watch but it can get tiring to hear the main character give speeches on morality even if they are good speeches. The characters are pretty awesome to watch in motion and the story is fun to watch as well. What really got me was how rich the setting was from the Church of England, to the Academy city the writer had it down and for me lore does a long way into making something interesting and enjoyable.

Overall [ 6.6 / 10 ]

Nothing much else that I can say. Really I liked it and that's all that matters to me. It's a good anime and even though it has it's flaws it manages to make up for them in ways that don't make me want to put my fist through my monitor. Check it out.

Astermio

Astermio
A traveling herbalist and magician. He stops by the tavern on occasion as he passes through and his arrival is often heralded with much excitement, whether that is that people hate him or are anxious to see the wares he's collected on his travels and use his services.

Disgea: Hour of Darkness Review

Elliot and Damon

Elliot and Damon
Two regulars of the Acronical Tavern. They are master and student. Each night, Elliot travels up from the ranch house down the road and meets Damon in the inn. Sometimes they train out back next to the pigs, but mostly it's just sitting by the bar and listening to old war stories and having a meal. Nobody knows exactly who Damon is, but it's rumored that he's a retired warrior from the Southern wolf tribes and that he himself is a werewolf due to his usual absence around the full moon.

Anime Review - To Love-Ru

Hello everybody! Today I am going to be reviewing an anime known as To Love-Ru. For those who dislike spoilers I am going to straight up say this. There might very well be spoilers in this, for those who don’t know what To Love-Ru is about just sit down and I’ll tell you. For this article I’ll be reviewing the first season of three.

To Love-Ru

To Love-Ru is an anime that aired in 2006, the story revolves around the nonsensical life of Yuuki Rito. This is not a series to be taken completely seriously and indeed it doesn't put forward the idea that you should. It is strange, has tons of fan service, and is overall light hearted. For a drinking game you should take a shot every time there is fanservice in the series. You’ll be dead before you leave the opening song.

Synopsis

Rito Yuuki, an average football playing teenage boy has problems with women. He gets so shy when trying to talk to them that he freezes up and ends up in a pool of his own sweat. He has found himself in love with a classmate named Haruna Seiranji, but every time that he tries to confess his love something happens to stop him, from a pot knocking him out to being ran over by elephants.

That is until one day while trying to confess a space ship crashes into the front terrace of their high school almost hitting Rito and ruining this confession attempt. Later that night while taking a bath a strange light comes from his tub and a naked woman appears before him, his hands cusped on her chest. This woman turns out to be Lala the princess of Deviluke a warlike space faring race that is known for their cruelty and military might. Now before you go thinking this is another premise for one of my fanfiction please not that all forms nudity are purely softcore and nothing more (even if there is tension building).

After that he finds out that via groping her, and later telling her that he loves her while looking her in the eye. (Another failed confession to Sairenji, I need to make this quick) That he has proposed to her and is to be the next king of Deviluke, if he can survive the crazy antics caused by the strange space princess Lala.

That’s the basic plot of the show, there are other details but you’ll just have to watch the show yourself to see them.

Now onto the actual review process.

Story [ 3 / 10 ]

The story is interesting enough but it isn’t the main focus of the anime. Though I found myself interested in what would happen it was still your standard harem, weak male protagonist anime. You can generally guess the way the plot will go from looking at the tags that describe this anime. I will note that the beginning did throw me off into thinking this was going to be much more serious than it really was.

Art [ 7.5 / 10 ]

The woman look fantastic and you might need tissues for certain scenes. Aside from that the anime had the nostalgic feel with it’s drawing. It isn’t hyper stylized like newer animes (which I consider better), but it isn’t trying to be super detailed either. For the time it’s about the average style that you got whenever you watched anime and I  personally like it.

Sound [ 3 / 10 ]

Really I cannot even remember much of the music in this show (perhaps I was too busy staring at the fanservice). But I can say that it didn’t really have a unique sound feel to it. The sound matched the scenes but I wouldn’t be able to tell it’s music out of a crowd. It’s no Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo but it’s ok.

Character [ 3 / 10 ]

As likable as the characters are, I find most of them to be really shallow and two-dimensional. Honestly they each play their role but there is not a whole lot of development, whenever it seems like there might be it turns about to be temporary at best. Lala is the fun oblivious genius, Haruna is the romantic interest, Zastin is the white knight… you get the point. They each fill their roles nicely but don’t expect them to develop beyond them.

Enjoyment [ 10 / 10 ]

The show is genuinely enjoyable to watch, it’s light hearted with sprinkles of tension placed around to make it more interesting. It’s silly and funny with many interesting but random events that keep it fun to watch. The amount of fanservice was not at all annoying as it can get in many other animes (I’m looking at you Seikon no Qwaser) and it made sure to not even take itself seriously so that I wouldn’t get the wrong impression on why I was watching it.

Overall [  5.3 / 10 ]

Don’t let this overall speak for the series itself, there are several things wrong for it but I still consider it to be a worthwhile watch. I did not at all feel robbed of time from my experience with it and I went on to watch the two next seasons and all of the OVA’s. I will say that if you are the kind of person that is looking for a serious anime to sit down and scowl at for twelve hours then it is not for you. But if you are a person looking for an anime to help lighten you up after having suffered from a serious and heart wrenching show then it might be the cure for you. It’s not perfect, but as long as you don’t expect it to be this glorious masterpiece then you’ll probably enjoy it.