This is only my second Persona game that I have played, the first one being Persona Portable. However, I stopped playing that after a few hours because it was really not my type of game. It has two really annoying features which I dislike in an RPG: random chance of encountering enemy base on number of steps taken; and grid battle system. In P3P, all these are gone (hooray!).

For those of you who have not played Persona 3 before, it is something like your dungeon crawling JRPG mixed together with a visual novel vibe. You can level up your character, buy items/equipments, do side quests, and even get yourself a girlfriend/boyfriend. Well, here is what I have experienced in the first 4 hours of the game.

Guided Experience

I wanted to write this article after 1 to 2 hours of gameplay, but I found out that it was impossible. Why is that? Because I was still only allowed to press the X button to go through dialogue after dialogue as the game was trying to set up the story. As the game progresses, it will slowly unveil the features to you and you will be able to control the character more and more. I didn’t mind this at all because the story, character design and character voices were keeping me entertained.

After about 4 hours later, I was pretty much able to roam around the town freely and also plan my daily activities out according to the days. I bet there are more tutorial messages that have not yet appeared, but at this point in the game you are free to do what you want.

Visual Novel Style

During times when you are not fighting in the dungeon, the game plays out like a visual novel. You will have a character portrait and a box of text below it. Sometimes, you will even get to choose what you want to say which in turn will have different reactions from the other party.

When travelling around places, you will not be running around in a 3D environment. Instead, you will be moving a cursor around something like a background image of place and selecting points of interest.

In Persona Portable, some of the cutscenes were animated. However in P3P, they just remain as visual novel style. The only time when I saw in-game cutscene was right before my first battle. I really hope there will be more of them as the game progresses.

Mind-Boggling Activity Planning

There is a lot of decision making in P3P, from dialogue options to battle tactics. But the most perplexing one is activity planning. Sometimes I will be forced to visit certain places due to story progression, but there are times where I am free to do anything I want. During this time, I can choose to find a friend to hang out with and build Social Links, fight in the dungeon to train up my party, visit a mall to purchase items and equipments, fuse personas, go on side quests, or improve on my character’s personal attributes (charm, courage, etc).

Buying/selling items and fusing personas will not have any side effects, but all the other activities will take up time. For example, it is a Sunday afternoon and I chose to go to the karaoke to increase my courage. This will be counted as an activity and so after that, the game will proceed to evening. From there, you can decide the next course of action to take.

This may sound easy, but I find myself at a loss when I try to decide what to do next. This is because there are just so many things to take note of if you want to maximize your time spent. I have joined a club and it has practice every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. At the same time, you can go to the Student Council Room every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. To top it off, sometimes I want to work part-time to earn some money and also improve on my character’s attributes and that has its fixed days as well. This can be a nightmare for some of you, but at the same time it just goes to show much you can do in this game.

Dungeon Crawling Made Easier

Dungeon crawling through an ominous tower is not as bad as I thought it would be. In almost every floor, there will be a randomly placed portal in the map and when you find it, you can use it to teleport back to the dungeon entrance where you can heal up your party members, save the game or return to your dorm room.

On the 5th floor of the dungeon, there is another type of portal which looks more like a small gateway. Like the previous portal, it will teleport you back to the dungeon entrance. When I used it again, it allows me to jump straight back to the 5th floor. I guess this portal will help to mark those key floors that you can revisit.

When you are at a floor and you want to find an exit quick, you can order your party to split up. Your party members will then go in different directions and cover the whole map for you finding loots, exits and staircases. If they wander too far from you, you cannot interact with them until you move closer to them. If you encounter a monster during this time, you will fight alone. I have not tried this with a floor filled with monsters, so I don’t know if they will attack your party members as well.

Enjoyable Turn-Based Battles

I am usually not a fan of turn-based strategy games because my brain is just not up for it. However in this game, the battle just felt simple and streamlined. I actually enjoy finding out the enemy’s weaknesses and watching the little animations happening on screen.

When you are engaging an enemy, you can choose to attack, defend, use a skill, change Persona, change tactic use an item, or flee. There is also a very useful feature called rush. What it does is you and your party members will continuously fight the enemies with the normal attacks. This helps to save a lot of time on those weaker enemies.

There is a level of tactics to the battle system. You may or may not be aware of some of them depending on the difficulty setting. On higher difficulty, more thinking is required whereas on easy it will be a breeze. I have chosen normal so that I can have a bit of both sides.

Frequent Save Points

Save points are pretty easy to come by in P3P. Although there are only 3 save points that I can think of, I see them quite frequently. They are at the dormitory lounge, your classroom desk, and the dungeon entrance. There may be more in the future, but just these 3 will suffice.

The only time I felt the need to save is during key events with long lines of dialogue. Some of you may not care about this because it does not affect you, but for those of you whose PSP has a loose battery like mine, you will be constantly wishing for a save point.

Final Thoughts

Persona 3 Portable is definitely a game worth checking out if you own a PSP. It is really amazing what this game has to offer in the palm of your hands. I find myself hooked onto it because every step in the game just seem so engaging to me. I have absolutely no problem with the game, other than the lack of in-game 3D cutscenes.

I have read on the internet that if you choose to play as the female protagonist, the dialogue is inconsistent because sometimes the NPCs will refer to you as a guy instead, so it is advisable to choose the male character. However, if you have already played like 10 times in the PlayStation 2 version, then you may want to choose the female character instead just to see a slight change in perspective.

I hope the game will remain this fun throughout and I hope you guys like it as much as I do!

This is the latest installment in the DJ Max franchise. I was a little hesitant upon writing this hands-on impression because I cannot take screenshots of the game with my PSP. I know I can use something called CheatCC, but I haven’t got around to reading the installation instruction yet. Furthermore, there are absolutely no screenshots available on the internet. I have already split my article into different parts to make it look less wordy, so I’m sorry if it made you cross-eyed!

Some Of The Differences

This is great for beginners, but advanced DJ Max players may not like this because now they have to crawl through this mode if they want to be a completionist.

This game is also missing the “Link Disc” and “OST” menus which were present in DJ Max Portable 2. “Link Disc” helps you transfer songs from Portable 1 so that you can play them in Portable 2. “OST” is basically a built-in MP3 player for the songs in the game. You can do without them really, but “OST” is still a nice feature to have.

Same Old, Same Old

Playing songs will allow you to earn different types of discs according to your performance for each of them. You can also unlock customizable parts which can make the in-game interface look nicer and at the same time add bonus stats to it. You can level up your profile as you play more songs which in turn changes your DJ rank. There is nothing you can do with the ranks other than showing it off to your friends in Network Battle, but this is pretty much the only reason that keeps you playing the same songs over and over again.

Final Thought

I will be covering the shows that I do watch so yeah, if your favourite anime is not here, don’t feel so sad. You could write a short excerpt for it in the comments below this post.

List of Shows

1. Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor

Uhh. 3 and a half seasons into Ikkitousen and I can honestly say that I still don’t know what’s going on with the show. The show is about high school kids who ‘inherited the souls of the Warriors of the Sangoku Times’ inside their Magatamas and its essentially a reenactment of the Warring States period in real life Japan. Yes. People do die, people do get injured, boobs start flying around. Did I say boobs start flying around? Yes. Yes I did. Because it happens all too often that it’s no longer a novelty to watch the show. It’s just distracting.

Am I still watching this? Yes. Why? I’ve no idea. It was this or that yaoi-like show and I’ll always pick boobs over anything remotely yaoi-like.

Impression Meter: 1/5

2. Heroman

Umm. I was hasty when I declared this THE ANIME OF THE SEASON back in my 1st episode review which never surfaced here. (Yes. I took it down cause Zen was too busy to post it up and god knows how long it has been since the 1st episodes)

Well. It’s not the best show of the season. That’s for 1. It’s not even in my Highly-Rated Tier any longer. While I liked the initial concept of Joey(the kid in the picture) being the manga version of Spider-Man X Superman, it just gets frustrating to watch the rest of the story unfold.

Did I mention that this anime has aliens? And how do all aliens find Earth? By some smartass scientist ready to welcome the aliens with open arms. You thought that was bad? The plot gets worse later on.

I’m still watching it for the fact that its a Stan Lee project and yes, I do love what Stan Lee does. He makes magic happen. I’m sure if they got rid of half the irritating side characters that were in this series, the show would blossom, but until then, this is still a subpar anime at best.

Impression Meter: 3/5

3. Shin Koihime Musou: Otome Tairan

Much like Ikkitousen, concept wise anyway, Koihime Musou is very loosely based on Romance of The Three Kingdoms, taking mostly the characters names only and sticking them onto girls. Yes. That’s the general descrip of Koihime Musou.

The current season(also the 4th season), takes place directly after the end of previous season where peace had finally been achieved. The entire team gets split up at the end of the 1st episode and I believe they will be reconvening in about 2 episodes before the end and then they face their enemy of the season cause that has always been the case the past 3 seasons.

Hmm. The show is at episode 8 already but I’m still stuck at Episode 4. Yes. I’m backlogged on this show and it’s because it uses the same formula for every season. Why do I still watch it? I honestly have no idea. Would I recommend it to you? No. There are way better things out there.

Impression Meter: 1/5

4. B Gata H Kei

This show isn’t that bad once you pass the 1st 4 episodes. BGHK is about Yamada(center girl) who wishes to have 100 sexual partners. Umm, very wtf? Yes. I Agree. Problem is, she’s still a virgin and she doesn’t want anyone to know about that. So you throw in Kosuda(guy on the bottom left) who’s a cherry-boy and the plot will revolve around her trying to literally ‘deflower HIM’, so that she gets it too in the process.

Yes. It sounds very messed up and that is what I was feeling in the 1st 4 episodes. The show eventually gets better when they start developing feelings for each other. Kosuda at 1 point actually confesses to her. In public. That kid has balls. Yes he does.

But yeah, the real gem of this anime is not the 1st layer of plot. It is the Kosuda-Yamada love that is the driving force of this series. It’s a messed up love story, but peel away all the ecchi layers and you get a very nice love story.

Impressions List: 3.5/5

5. Kaichou wa Maid-sama

Yeah. I told myself not to spoil myself with the manga when I watched the 1st episode. Guess what I did 5 minutes after I said that?

Times up. And your probable answer is yes. I spoiled myself by reading the manga. I caught all the way up to where the manga was at that point and I’m still following it. And because I’ve spoilt myself so much, I can say for a fact that I love the characters and I love the story. But I hate the pacing of the anime where they go from arc to arc in 1 or 2 episodes. It’s a 45-page monthly manga for goodness sake. They’re nibbling away some of the best scenes in the manga in my most honest opinion.

If it were a review based on the characters and story alone, this show would get a solid 5 from me. But because of the way the anime is?

Impression Meter: 4/5

6. Angel Beats

This show is a diamond. Started out as the most confusing show this season, it is now THE MOST beautiful show with the MOST ELABORATE plot this entire season.

Writing anything story-related down would spoil the experience of the show so I won’t.

What I will comment about is that this show has produced more songs than K-ON! has this season. Yes. This isn’t a music-geared anime and it has produced more than K-ON!. Banzai Angel Beats! The characters are beautiful and well defined and the animation, jsut breathtaking.

For anyone who can say they hate this show, it would be blasphemy.

Impression Meter: 5/5

7. Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou

This is THE Comedy X Harem anime of the season. Oh just a quick note, with the except of Satomi Sato, all the other members of Hokago Tea Time are in this anime at one point or another.

While Ayana(Azusa) and Minako(Mugi) are just minor characters, Yoko Hikasa(Mio) plays Hattori Junko(girl with blue hair) and Aki Toyosaki plays Soga Keena(red haired girl).

Umm. I don’t really know how to describe this show. It’s not your everyday shounen-harem-comedy anime. It’s more. For example, there are really pervese jokes provided by the resident Lilidan(the green haired girl called Korone) and then there’s the dark queen who gives off the ero feel(Purple-Haired girl called Fujiko, who by the way is voiced by Itou Shizuka so YAYYYY!!!)

I’m just talking about the girls aren’t I? Yes. I find that I tend to do that alot. Well, to talk about the main guy(Sai Akuto), he’s a straightforward honest person who is also the next Demon King. Yea. While he keeps rejecting that position in the beginning, nearing the mid-season he soon learns to accept the title and use his power if necessary to save his friends.

The show’s a mess but yet it’s watchable. You’ll either love it or hate it.

Impression Meter: 4/5

8. Working!!!

And to think I almost dropped this before I started watching it. It’s tons of fun watching this show.

The general backdrop of this series is in a family restaurant named Wagnaria! and the story revolves around the employees there. It sounds really plain but I swear it’s a bucketload of fun watching. The other backdrop is Katanashi’s house, and yes, Katanashi is the ‘main guy’ in this show.

If your wondering why I’m writing so little for this anime, it’s because words can’t describe it. It’s like watching School Rumble. How do your describe SR? You can’t. It’s just…… watch and laugh. So yes. You want to laugh? Watch Working!!!

Impression: 4/5

9. Mayoi Neko Overrun

The only other show this season that gets a solid 5/5 because the show is full of win, full of laughter and full of emotion. There’s a different director for each episode but before I knew this fact, I would never been have able to tell that out.

What stated off as a comedy-anime to kill time, has become a Must-Watch-Weekly Comedy-Anime for me. Why? 1st there was that epic hotsprings episode with the epic ping-pong match. Then there was that epic Jenga tourney that reminded me so much of Saki. Need I mention the Super-Sentai episode?

But, it’s not all fun and games. The show does have its emotional notes and when they have them, they hit them well. And I really mean well. Most of the lead characters are orphans with the exception of Uenomori but she’s ‘like’ an orphan cause her parents are never there.

Well. You have to watch this show to know what it’s all about. It’s really stellar.

Impression: 5/5

10. K-ON! 2nd Season

WS K-ON! is full of win in stark contrast to the 4:3 format last time around.

I don’t really want to write a K-ON! post cause 95% of the readers are probably watching this week after week. What I will say is that Mio is still the queen of this show and her 2nd in command Azusa is the only reason this show is still remotely watchable. I mean… why did we fall in love with this show back in S1? The songs….. OH RIGHT. THE SONGS!!

Of which this season lacks… big time. Can’t say I’m dissappointed. They’re just dragging this out to milk as much money as possible. I think we’ll probably get a Ton-chan plushie soon enough. I can’t wait for the Drama CDs of Azusa doing Enka if it’s out though. OHHH!! And I want a Mio-Fanclub card. haha.

Yea. I’ve got nothing much to say about the anime as you can tell because it’s been a dissappointing ride. Heck, I was more entertained with the K-ON! OVA then I have been all season.

Impression: 3/5

11. Kiss X Sis TV

Full of Win. Full of Win.

I would write something but it would have to be heavily censored. This show is all about inappropriate relations between brothers and sisters and other side-characters that don’t stand a chance against the sisters because the sisters are just plain awesome.

This is another show with Ayana Takatatsu(VO of Azusa) this season so it’s naturally full of win. Even more full of win? When she’s trying to be seductive. WOOHOOO!!!

This show is not recommended for anyone below the legal age of R-rated material plainly because this should be considered R-rated material. But for those who are above the legal age. Watch it. It’s the most grey an anime can ever get before turning into a different type of animation spelled with 6 alphabets.

Impression Meter: 4/5

Well that’s the end of this review. I know it’s not much of a review when I’m literally writing nothing about the shows at all but well, try to enjoy my snarky comments I guess? If you have a series you’d like to highlight which I’ve not mentioned here, do comment about it in the Comments Box so other readers can view it as well.

I have played a ton of the cooperative and multiplayer demo together with Zenical so I jumped into the retail version knowing very well the little, but numerous flaws that are in the game. What I can conclude about Lost Planet 2 is that if you do not have time to invest in the learning curves, then you should not pick this game up. In this post I will address some of the problems I have faced so far.

Undesired Controls

The first and one of the most frustrating problem that most people will face is the awkward control scheme. People should note that the game does not follow the typical controls for a normal shooter. For example, the reload button is pressing R3, throwing grenade is the L1 button, and zooming/scoping is the up/down directional buttons. I have scrolled through the provided control schemes and none of them are much better or worse than the other. The controls will take some time to master, but it is not impossible.

So lets say you have mastered the obvious movement and combat controls. There are still a ton of “hidden” controls for you to find out and get used to. Unless you read through the whole manual to uncover some of them, most people jump straight into the game without doing so, expecting some tutorial levels or pop-ups to teach them that. Well, Lost Planet 2 has none of those so it is up to you, your friends, or the loading screens to teach you how to execute the more advanced controls. One example would be dashing while on a Vital Suit (VS). You have to push the left stick in the desired direction while pressing it down, and then press the X button. Unless you view the in-game VS manual, there is almost no way that a person will be able to find out about that. Once again, learning these controls will take time but not impossible.

Clunky Menus

The menus in this game suffer the same problem as Resident Evil 5, it feels very time consuming to get to the desired page that you are looking for. The game’s main page itself is suffering from clunkiness. There are icons arranged in a horizontal manner, each depicting the menu that it represents. However, the name of the menu that they are depicting will only appear when you select it. Of course, this will not be a problem after a while but it is still an unnecessary inconvenience to new players. After selecting one, you may be greeted by tons of sub menus before reaching your desired page.

To add on to the problem, some of the menus require a loading screen which really gives a “can’t this thing go any faster??” kind of feel. This is not a very big problem, but there are times when it does get in your way. For example, a lot of times I just want to visit “My Page” just to use up my credits on the slot machine. But when you enter “My Page”, it requires a loading screen. If you are rushing for time, this will frustrate you a little.

Slow Character Animations

The characters in the game wear really heavy armor. Unfortunately, the weight has been carried over to the character animations. If you have played games like Monster Hunter or Resident Evil 5, this is quite similar to those games. when you switch your weapons, your character will stop moving. When you are throwing a grenade, your character will stop moving. When you fall from a certain height (quite low), there will be a 2-3 seconds stumbling animation. When you are near a grenade, you will be knocked off your feet and getting back up will take 3-5 seconds. These animations may sound quite fast when you are reading it, but when you are under fire by a bunch of enemies, 3 seconds is enough to get you killed.

Story Feels Unimportant

There are a lot of times I find myself just not interested at what is going on in the story. Usually when it involves some sort of large scale catastrophe, I will be more inclined to find out what happened. But in this game, I just feel detached from the story.

I feel the main problem is the campaign being 4-player cooperative. It feels like the developers are more focused on making the levels playable in a cooperative environment than trying to make them convey the story better. All you do in the game is activating data posts after data posts and then when all of them are activated, you will go to the next area where you can activate even more data posts. Then when you die, there will be a respawn timer and then you can select the data post that you want to respawn at. I am not sure why, but the fact that you can respawn in such a manner just makes me feel disconnected from the story. Left 4 Dead is a perfect example on how to make it less obvious and more in tune with the game’s setting.

Another aspect that makes the story feel unimportant are the characters in the game. The snow pirates in the same faction look identical and they sound almost the same, so it is very difficult to distinguish them. Furthermore, all of them are wearing some sort of headgear that either covers the bottom half of their face or the whole head. Not being able to see their full facial features makes me feel unattached to them, which is crucial for better story progression.

With those things in mind, I am more interested in shooting and surviving than what is happening to the planet.

Textures Vs. Close-up Shots

There are a bunch of close up shots in the cinematics of Lost Planet 2. They are good to use to express certain emotions and make viewers feel closer (NOT literally) to the characters. However in this game, the close-up shots show the “ugly” side of the game. When zoomed in, the textures in the game look blurred which in turn make them look awful. I have to say though, that when the view is more zoomed out, the game looks great. So if they handle the camera shots better, my impression of the overall visuals will definitely improve.

No Friends? Avoid Playing

The cooperative campaign is a lot of fun to play with. However, if you do not have any friends to play with, you will find it quite boring after a while. I usually play with Zenical and rarely find myself playing alone. I can complete the story once by myself just fine, but the main reason that I am interested to play through it again is that I have friends to play with. It is fun to help each other and laugh at all the dumb mistakes that we make. If I do not have any friends, I will still be replaying it, but the main reason will be to earn trophies.

Another reason why it is better to play with a friend is that after a while, you will keep skipping cutscenes because you have already watched them. Unlike Resident Evil 5, there are no indications that your teammate(s) wants to skip them. So you will find yourself going off to do something else while waiting for the cutscene to end. There is in-game voice-over chat, but I usually do not use it when playing with strangers so I do not want to turn it on just to tell them to skip cutscenes.

On A Brighter Note

Apart from the textures and story, I find that with more time and a few friends, the game can be quite fun. There are tons of guns, character parts and abilities to unlock, it is fun to coordinate attacks with your friends, you can laugh at all the silly little mistakes that your friends make, see what funny Noms de Guerre that your friend has applied, enjoy the great visual effects, and probably a lot more that I cannot think of right now. If you can look past some of these flaws, the game is actually pretty decent.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I feel that Lost Planet 2 is pretty similar to Resident Evil 5. The game can be really fun, but the playing environment has to be just right. Once again if you do not have the time to invest in learning curves, you are better off playing other games that are more suitable for you. If you are patient or have time to spare and got a few friends to play with frequently, then you should really get it.

A while back I heard about a series called Kaichou wa Maid-Sama! (Class President is a Maid!) which was going to be animated this spring. After hearing alot of recommendations about it I decided to cheat and try out the Manga before it is released in April. I have to admit… at first I was quite hesitant. I personally prefer something more of the Butler Variety (there actually are butlers in this eventually, so I forgive it), but this series did exceed my expectations.

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama!
Volumes: 11 (Ongoing)
Genre: Shoujo, Comedy, School, “Romance,” MAIDS!
Publisher: LaLa

The story revolves around a girl who ends up in a school in which the demographics of the student body are 80% male and only 20% female. The school used to be an all boys school, and had only recently started enrolling girls, but because the school has a bad reputation very few girls were willing to go there. Our  stories protagonist Misaki is a very strong willed girl, and takes it upon herself to become the student body president and make the school environment more tolerable for the female students. She tends to rule with an iron fist, hates men, and will not hesitate to beat the crap out of the boys who don’t follow her rules. She earns both the fear and respect of most of the student body. Besides being so strong willed she’s at the top of the class and appears to be very mature.

That is what Misaki appears to be on the surface at least… but after school ends she heads to her secret part time job at a maid cafe! Its kind of an ironic job considering she detests men as much as she does, but we soon learn that her father abandoned the family leaving a huge debt, and she’s working hard to help her family and pay her tuition. Misaki somehow manages to balance her Grades, Work, Money, and responsibilities as the class president. Things seem to be going well until her secret is spilled. The coolest guy from her school, Takumi Usui, happens to find out about her job. He may be cool and good looking, but his personality is extremely irritating to Misaki. He is showing up at the shop EVERY SINGLE DAY, and she is worried he might black mail her about her secret job. We quickly find out though that this guy is either a crazy playboy stalker, or has fallen in love with her. He is willing to jump off the school roof to keep her secret safe if that will make her happy.

The plot itself doesn’t seem that original, but I’ve still enjoyed it so far. The female character has a kind of Newtype-Shoujo character; a character like Haruhi from Ouran. She has alot of inner strength which is different from traditional shoujo characters, but at the same time she’s girly deep down. She also seems to have some weird obsession with cross dressing which also reminds me alot of  Haruhi from Ouran. Usui the main male character also has some atypical traits for a shoujo series. First of all… he’s a stalker. The manga never explicitly calls him this, but every time Misaki goes anywhere, he is there watching her!!! Also, while Usui takes up the “Perfect at everything” and  “strong will protect my lover at all costs” type character, he’s emotionally pretty weak and confused. He actually reminds me a little bit of Tamaki from because of his family situation and princely airs, but Usui is much more aggressive,  intelligent and emotionally aware of his feelings for Misaki right away. There are one or two characters introduced later that I also like alot (A TRAP, and a childhood friend with an insatiable appetite… but I won’t spoil too much of the series before it even airs.) Actually my favorite three characters are the “idiot trio” which don’t even have an important role in this story xD

Since the manga is still ongoing I’m worried what the anime will do to end it (really, why can’t they wait for these things to end before animating them!?). I look forward to this in spring, and recommend comedy fans to watch it as well.

Its finally come to the end of my 4 week long winter vacation; tomorrow I start yet another semester of college. During my long break I may have been too lazy to post on Zotaku much, but I was busy being quite productive with other things. I worked full time all break to save up monies… and during my free time I caught up on all 190 episodes of Comedy Anime Gintama! I think that’s quite an accomplishment! So I decided that its necessary now for me to make a post on my love of this series =3

Gintama
Episodes: 191+ (Ongoing)
Genres: Shounen, Comedy/Parody, Historical, Sci-fi, Action
Aired: Apr 4, 2006- Ongoing
Producer: Sunrise
People have been telling me to watch Gintama for a long time. I was told I would like it because it has a similar premise to Rurouni Kenshin (Its set in the same time period at least), and that its full of nonsensical and hilarious comedy.  But the plot summaries made it sound really cheesy, and its a long Shounen series, something I’ve been inching away from lately. But since the Fall season of anime was lackluster, and there was still about a month till winter series began, I decided to take a chance with it. I am very happy I took this chance, Gintama is easily is my favorite 100+ episode series to current date.

The absolute truth about this series!

As far as the plot goes… I now understand why I’ve found no good summary of this series. While there is a plot somewhere in there, it is overshadowed by comedy-type episodes for the most part. Generally for every 50 episode season there is only 1-2 plot relevant arcs. The main story takes place in what would be similar to the post Bakumatsu-Era in our reality, but in the Gintama universe, space aliens show up and force the Japanese government into submission. In the years that followed, despite being in an old age setting, because of the foreign alien’s presence, Japan has become technologically advanced to the point they have televisions, Shounen Jump, Video Games, and most other modern day advances.

Our silver haired protagonist, Gintoki, had been a powerful Samurai in the past, but since the war he has become a lazy couch potato who spends all day sleeping, reading Shounen Jump, and thinking of ways to avoid paying the rent. He has a business to do random jobs if people contact him, but it seems to be very inconsistent work. Even though he still carries a wooden sword around and dresses like a samurai, between his attitude and “natural perm,” most people would never suspect that he has a samurai spirit. At the beginning of the series he befriends a whiny Otaku samurai in training, and a weird little alien girl who’s strong enough to throw a car at you if she’s angry enough. The three of them become like a weird twisted family and work together to help the people of Japan and make money in the process.

Super Sadistic Okita Souga =3

There are a ton of characters in Gintama, and most of them are based on Historical figures. The Shinsengumi, famous political figures, and the Oniwaban group play a role in this series (many of which should be very familiar if you watched Kenshin). My favorite Gintama character is Okita Souga of the Shinsengumi, who is based on the real Shinsengumi Okita Souji. The real representation of Souji also appears in Trust and Betrayal OVA of Rurouni Kenshin along with the historical figures of Katsura and Kondo who also appear in Gintama. Further more, my second favorite Rurouni Kenshin character, Seta Soujiro, is also based on Okita Souji. Even plot wise I feel that Gintama has many simularities to Rurouni Kenshin. For instance,  Gintoki used to be an amazing warrior, but now he protects his friends. The first arc of the series is about a woman trying to restore her family Kendo Doujo; this is essentially the same plot as the first few episodes of Rurouni Kenshin. The character Katsura in Gintama is constantly trying to blow up government buildings (at least at first), and in Rurouni Kenshin there is a small arc about Sanosuke’s friend who is also trying to destroy the government with his collection of bombs. I could go on, but I will end my Kenshin related rant now.

Gintama is cheesy… I admit it. It is aware of how ridiculous they are though… in fact on a regular basis they break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience about lack of funding from Sunrise (because they’re too focused on Gundam),  or complaints from PTAs for showing perverted things during daytime television. They also directly talk about the “filler syndrome” of long running anime series that catch up to their manga too quickly, and then go on and talk about random stuff for 10 minutes to purposely waste time. One of my favorite arcs was made in response to a real life character popularity poll; the character’s start a war to try and get higher spots. The humor can be a little crude at times; I’ve lost track of how many times characters have crapped in their pants, and threw up, or were walking around with pixelated penises… But I guess this is part of Gintama’s charm? This series also makes alot of pop culture references, especially about video games. Off the top of my head I can think of a whole arc parodying Dragon Quest, a LONG arc parodying Monster Hunter, and several episodes about the Nintendo Wii and modern generation console flame wars. Really, Gintama touches on any and every subject, because it lacks a constant plot it has no boundaries about what it can joke about.

Putting the comedy aside, on the rare occasion this series delves into the plot, it does a really good job at being a serious action anime as well. While the animation is kind of standard, the battle scenes are always pretty epic. As the story has been fleshing out some of the character’s back stories I have become even more anxious to get more plot related episodes, enough that I can generally hold out the 50 episode filler intervals between mini “Plot Arcs.”  A normal series is maybe 80% plot, 20% filler… Gintama flips those numbers and is about 80% filler and 20% plot. Under normal circumstance it would be normal to dislike a series like that, but for some reason with Gintama it makes the few plot arcs seem that much more impressive.

GO WATCH GINTAMA!!!

While saying all Rurouni Kenshin fan’s would like this series is a bit of a stretch, I think people that enjoy historical shounen would at least be interested. I think Gintama would be more appealing to fans of comedy series like Seto no Hanayome, Ranma 1/2, Minami Ke, Hayate the Combat Butler, or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Actually… Cromartie High School has probably the most similar feeling of any other anime I’ve seen.

Rating: 8.5/10

I’ll end with my favorite opening:

In the most current Arc, the Valentine’s day arc, alot has happened. I give this current arc a rating of 9/10— Its only beaten by Ren’s “Role Play” arc. Since alot happens in this arc, I’m only going to cover a summary of the last 5-6 chapters.

The first huge thing to happen this arc was Kyouko was kissed by her ex-love (and sworn enemy) Fuwa Shou. Not only was she kissed against her own will, but she was done so in front of all her co-workers, and Ren, the actor she respects most (who is secretly in love with her). This kiss was totally unexpected, I had to reread this chapter at least a dozen times! I was under the impression Shou was going to do something really stupid… he had been jealous for a while over her relationship with Ren, but also the incident with the goth “beagle” earlier in the arc. What really made him snap though was she mentioned she had a special valentine’s day/Birthday present for him. His kiss wasn’t a “loving” kiss though. He only managed to steal it by tricking her… He gave her a valentines chocolate… and then kissed with this the excuse that he was taking it back (this was a really long and embarrassing kiss). Later he explains his evil plot. He knew that after such an evil deed she would never be able to get her mind off him. Even though she would be fuming for loosing her first kiss to the man she hates most… at least she would be thinking about him. I find it kind of amusing that Shou’s thinking is so similar to the Beagle’s xD

Ren is not happy at all. He rarely lets his scary face get out, but even his manager catches his bad mood. Personally I would have liked it better if he just beat the crap out of Shou on the spot, but that would have been very out of character for him.  Kyouko’s immediate reaction is just complete and total despair. Her brain just isn’t functioning and she’s about to break down in tears (or rather she does)

Ren’s reaction is very typical though. He lectures her that a true actor wouldn’t even be phased by something like that. It wasn’t even a real kiss. Ren warns her not to let it happen again though. (His irritation with this whole situation is quite obvious to anyone with common sense, of course Kyouko doesn’t realize WHY he’s angry though, since she doesn’t know he’s in love with her.)

 Even after accepting this explanation, even though Kyouko is now “functional” she is still very angry.  She mainly reverts to super saiyan “I HATEHATEHATE SHOUTAROU” mode! Ren sees this and is angry and jelous but can’t really do anything more about it for the time being.Somewhere in her rage Kyouko remembers the Valentine’s day gift she had put aside for Ren, and decides its the opportune moment to give it to him. They go off to a side room and she gives him some wine jelly in a really fancy rose colored glass. She’s trying to act really happy… But Ren (being an expert at deception) totally see’s her angry face shining through and is ticked off.

In his anger Ren decides to do something… something to get Shou out of Kyouko’s head.I was having a fangirl heart attack at this moment… that finally after nearly 150 chapters finally something real would happen in their relationship. Even though it was just a little peck on the cheek… it effected Kyouko in a radical way.

Apparently Ren’s magic kiss had the intended effect… all thoughts of Shou were completely driven out of her mind… but…

The kiss had alot of negative effects as well. She is so embarrassed she can’t seem to do her acting role seriously. She looks like she’s about to have a nervous breakdown, she can’t think straight at all. And most of all she can’t look or think of Ren without turning bright red.At this point its the end of 149. I had no idea what would happen in the next chapter. I was really hoping for some real romantic development to occur. But at the back of my head I just had this bad feeling that Ren was going to talk his way out of this. Since he really loves Kyouko he wants her to be happy (and functional) as an actress, and she’s just not at a place emotionally where she can be in a romantic relationship and do that.

I mean… if she’s so immature that this is her reaction to a little kiss on the cheek, what would be her reaction if Ren, a grown man, really confessed his love for her. Besides that I don’t think she’s fully over her anger issues with Shou… I don’t know if she can fully embrace love till she gets over her issues with him. So like I had assumed… Ren takes the easy way out. He tells Kyouko that back in America, this his how he thanked all the female models, that it wasn’t something romantic. Then he goes onto lecture her like he always does.

I have to say I was a little disappointed that more didn’t happen after all the emotional build up of this arc, but I wasn’t really expecting much else either.  I’m hoping we see just a little bit more emotions from Kyouko, I find it hard to believe she can completely throw out her feelings about that kiss… but then again she is hopelessly oblivious, so I don’t expect much from her. Since this seems to be the conclusion of this arc, hopefully the next chapter (released January 4th) will be the start of a new one. I personally hope the next arc is focused on Ren! Maybe they could bring Ren’s parents, or at least dad, back into the story (I really liked the chapters with him.). We also need to know more about Ren’s past, and how come he grew up to be so twisted. To be completely realistic… I don’t think there will be any relationship development till we get both Kyouko’s and Ren’s full story. Even though we are officially 150 chapters into the story, there are so many holes left that need to be filled.

Anyways, this was an good arc (especially compared to the previous arc), and I’m really sad it will probably never be animated TT____TT

At least the arc ended with Ren admitting to being a Playboy =D (He definitely is!!!)

 Hopefully someone out there enjoyed my post and becomes a fellow Ren Skip Beat fangirl.

That is just the first 24 hours. The five-day sales figure was also released and it has reached $550 million (that was on November 18, so it should be higher by now). The game has broke all kinds of sales record in the entertainment industry:

Activision claims Modern Warfare 2 bested Grand Theft Auto IV’s first-day worldwide game sales records of 3.6 million units and $310 million. The game also apparently busted GTAIV’s five-day global haul of 6 million units on $500 million of gross revenue.

Activision said that Modern Warfare 2 broke Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s five-day global box-office record of $394 million.

The game also eclipsed The Dark Knight’s first- and five-day domestic theatrical opening, which stood at $66.4 million and $203.8 million, respectively.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows’ first-day book sales record of $220 million was also surpassed.

- via GameSpot

As you all know, the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 was getting a lot of bad remarks because of the features excluded and also a few digital retailers’ refusal to sell the game. There was also a boycott for the game (seems to be a common thing nowadays =S pretty sad…).

Despite all this, Infinity Ward has reported that the PC version is selling well. Additionally, it has done better than Modern Warfare 1. So, what happened to all the people saying “I have cancelled my preorder!” or “no buy for me!”? Guess they gave in to the temptation and still bought it =P.

Series Name: Seitokai no Ichizon
Genre: Comedy, Parody, School Life, HAREM!!!
Episodes: 13
Notable Seiyuus: Noto Mamiko, Kondo Takashi

OP Sequence: Treasure by Heikyou Gakuen Seitokai(The 4 main female leads)

The OP animation sequence is nice. The song is catchy, the girls are hot. This show was a winner in my book from before I even got to the main plot. The OP is sung by the 4 main female leads of the show. All 4 main female leads are relatively new to the industry. Yup, for 3/4 of them, this would be their 1st seiyuu role. And they add a fresh new voice to the industry.

Characters wise, there are 5 main characters and 2 support characters that pop in from time to time. The 5 main lead characters are Sakurano Kurimu aka Aka-chan, Akaba Chizuru, Shiina Minatsu, Shiina Mafuyu and Sugisaki Ken.

The 1st 4 were placed into the Seitokai based on a school popularity contest. As for Ken, he got into the Seitokai on the fact that he’s the smartest kid in school.

The characters are all equally balanced. There’s the Chibi-redhead[Aka-chan]. Then the alluring sexy-brunette[Chizuru]. The Tomboy-ish Brown-haired girl[Minatsu], the game/bishounen loving blonde[Mafuyu] and lastly the king of H-Games and Harem Seeker.[Sugisaki Ken]

Plot wise, there’s not much of an ongoing continous plot going on. The show mainly deals with the day-to-day activities of the Heikyou Seitokai like what they do and what they have to do. That being said, for some, the show will totally put them off as it’s like a comedy club setting. The entire series practically takes place in the Seitokai room with rare changes of scenery.

The show focuses on 2 aspects. 1) the parodies. 2) Sugisaki’s Sukebe-ness and Harem Dreams.

Yes. The parodies are great but honestly, without subtitles, I would be totally lost like 99% of the time. Just in the 1st episode alone there’s a Lucky Star parody and I believe it was the 4th/5th episode where there was a Code Geass parody.

While the parodies alone, can carry the show, I honestly believe it was Sugisaki’s Sukebe-ness and Harem dream that got me hooked on this show. Week after week you’ll see him continually picking his words properly so that his life, which is his opinion is like a H-game, will follow the Harem Route.

Just episode 5 there was an episode where he was made to wear blindfolds as the A/C in the Seitokai room had broken down and the girls resorted to wearing swimsuits.

Yep, the material in this show is superb. The current novel is still ongoing so I believe there’s a lot of material that can be worked on in the future if say a 2nd season happens.

Seitokai no Ichizon gets a 4.5/5 from me.

(as for why I decided to not place an ED video, it is because the ED changes weekly. So yeah.)

Series Name: Nyan Koi!
Genre: Comedy, Cats, Harem?
Episodes: 12
Notable Seiyuus: Jun Fukuyama, Yuu Kobayashi, Haruka Tomatsu, Rina Satou, Ryoko Shiraishi

OP Sequence: Nyanderful by Sakakibara Yui

Well, despite being knee deep in school work at the moment, thought I would come back for a while to do some of the Mid-Season Impressions posts I’d wanted to so since Episode 2 of most shows. Time to get started. Nyan Koi!

Starting with the OP. Very very addictive stuff. Sakakibara Yui has a voice of a goddess and I believe it was because of this song that I even gave the series a chance. Oh yes, I was planning to just drop this show due to the fact that it was all about cats throughout the entire series. Thankfully I didnt, cause it’s one of the few shows that I’m hooked on to at the moment.

The series itself is pretty stellar. Kousaka Junpei is your typical male lead and like most male leads, they have weaknesses. Superman has Kryptonite, Indiana Jones has Snakes, Junpei has Cats as his achilles heel. To make things far worse, his entire household is a family of cat lovers. So, *PING*, double whammy.

The girl he likes, his fated to be, Mizuno Kaede would be the exact opposite of him. She’s a complete cat lover born into a family that has 4 dogs. So yeah, no cat love there.

Midway through the 1st episode, Junpei gets into a little accident and causes the head of the NekoJizou statue to roll over. Oh yes, this is where the real plot begins. Due to his mishap and apparent disrespect for the NekoJizou, the cats have blessed Junpei with the ability to communicate with cats. This does come with a drawback. He needs to fufill the wishes of 100 cats in order not to be turned into a cat himself.

Plot sounds a little corny? Yeah, I thought so too. Thankfully the real plot of the show is overshadowed by the harem aspects of the show. Oh yes, Junpei will get himself a harem as well. There’s Kaede, the girl of his dreams. Then there’s Kanako, the osananajimi(childhood friend), then there’s Nagi, who’s pushing for the Kaede-Junpei boat. There’s also Kotori and Akari which make up the Twins route and finally Chizuru which makes up the ‘Adult’ route. Chizuru’s really just a Uni Student and not working-adult adult. So yeah.

Hmm, I’ve seem to have written a wall of text but I’ve decided to keep this impressions post almost picture-less to save time. The harem subplot is pretty awesome. It’s episode 6 now and Kotori as well as Akari have finally been introduced.

So yeah. The plot while on the harem side is great due to the diverse characters, on the actual nekojizou mission thingy, not so great. Actually during those mission thingys, the only thing keeping me watching is Jun Fukuyama’s Tama.

Characters wise. Love them. Mizuno seems like every other ‘dream girl’, while Kanako seems like every other osananajimi that seems to hate the main lead at the start of the series but fall for him again midway through. Yeah. This part is pretty much covered well.

Music wise. OP is great. Not really a fan of the ED, but I don’t listen to the ED much.

Overall, Nyan Koi! is great to start but the plot needs to move faster. I’d like the show more if they just continue on the harem path and when the due date is up, Junpei turns into a cat and choke on his own allergies. :D

Nyan Koi! gets 3.5/5 from me. To end off, here’s the ED: Strawberry ~Amaku Setsunai Namida~ by Asami Imai

If I’m free for like 30 mins again, I’ll work on my next impressions post, Seitokai no Ichizon or Seiken no Blacksmith