Spice and Wolf Review
Hey erryone. This time, at the behest of Alex Luncford from YouTube, I review Spice and Wolf. Come along as we explore a fanciful medieval-type setting.
http://youtu.be/ZSIkllE3iT8
Best,
Phil Bohn
Blog Post
Rosario+Vampire Review
A review that was requested by Animeboy5671. Thank you, kind sir, for the request. This time, I talk about Rosario+Vampire, a sex-fueled harem comedy. Get psyched. The audio/visual sync problems go away after a while. Sorry about that though. Sadface.
http://youtu.be/iaknWSeqeuY
Best,
Phil Bohn
Heroic Age Review
This time, I review another anime that I stopped watching a while ago and then decided out of the blue to watch again. Join me, as we explore the ridiculous and pretty-cool space epic, Heroic Age!
http://youtu.be/IdPszm_OuK0
Best,
Phil Bohn
Shikabane Hime Review and General Update
This time around, I review an anime that I watched years ago and then decided to rewatch while I was cleaning. It’s pretty dece. Won’t change your life, but will at least be a welcome and fun distraction.
http://youtu.be/BEptfvsmw5g
Best,
Phil Bohn
The Legend of Korra Impression
I know it’s not technically anime, but it’s a big thing in the animation world and something that I was really looking forward too. I wanted to wait a bit to let to the show get a good head of steam, but finally I talk about the newest Nickelodeon project and latest entry into the Avatar series, The Legend of Korra. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/gA2Hg5Wo2Rg
Best,
Phil Bohn
Survivor Series: Devil Survivor 2 Review
Recently, I imagine that you been asking yourself a question lately, ” Where the F#%k has Devil Survivor been for the last three months??” Well ladies and gentlemen I moved to South Korea and I’m teaching at a public high school. Its been a good time so far and finally I have time to write something. The topic this time is the second Devil Survivor game which came out in February. I have played through it twice now and I’ll give you a tour.
Background Story
The story in Devil Survivor 2 is a bit different then in the first game as the story this time takes place in different locations around Japan and in the first game you were locked down in Tokyo the whole time trying to escape. Again your a boy in high school, this time a third year high student instead of a second year student, who is coming back from an exam at school with his two friends. When at the subway station, they receive an email on their phones from a website that shows a video clip depicting their deaths in an explosion in the near future. The three students are able to avoid their imminent deaths because of a warning from an avatar from the site and then a train comes crashing and they run for cover. As they wake demons appear and a battle begins, after defeating the demons the students form a contract with the demons and become demon summoners. Soon after the heroes encounter a mysterious government agency known as JP’s that is trying to protect the remaining Japanese cities that haven’t been completely destroyed by the disaster that has struck Japan. They ally with JP’s in order to find out what is behind the disaster that has befallen Japan and find a way to survive.
Gameplay
The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the last game which used a turned based system combat system on a grid of squares. The combat system also featured teams of three, two demons and one of the human characters, and the game allowed you to use up to 4 teams at once. You can carry up to 24 demons in your party at any one time and a great feature of this game is the ability summon a new demon if one of your demons lose all its hit points. Another feature from the first game is ability to create more powerful demons by fusing two less powerful demons. A new twist has been added to this feature called the demon compendium which saves all demons used or created in the fuse application, and for a price you can immediately summon that demon back to your party as long you have a free space. A completely new feature is called the Fate System which is a social relationship system that uses a 0 to 5 scale to rate the bond between the main character and the other characters. The benefit of having a high level bond with another character is that it grants you certain special abilities that can only be used with that character. Again present is the branching story lines like other SMT games, although it seems like there are as many paths as was in the previous game. The demon auction also still in the game, but is less important now with the demon compendium in the game.
Graphics and Cutscenes
The graphics in some ways are not much improved from the original game. The environments looks more detailed and the bosses look quite nice. However, some of the artwork from the first game was reused, but if you haven’t played the first one then you probably won’t notice that. The cut scenes are where the game shines because the first game doesn’t have nearly as many as DS2. The cut scenes all look graphically bright and vibrant. Overall the game is an improvement in most areas in terms of graphics.
Audio and Music
The game’s soundtrack is exceptional, which is a hallmark of any of the SMT games. Each song seems to fit the scene its being played in. The sound effects for the different demon attacks and other actions fit nicely with the overall feel of the game.
Closing Comments
Comparing this game to the original devil survivor it holds its own, while bringing some new gameplay elements to the table. I think Atlus could have put some more effort into making some more new artwork for the character interactions instead of just reusing some of the character models from the first game. Overall, the game is improvement over the first incarnation. One final note, if you haven’t played the first game yet, don’t worry because you can jump right into this game because the two stories have no bearing on each other at and are completely separate stories in effect.
Cheers and Beers,
Devil_Survivor
Eureka Seven AO Episode 1
It finally premiered!! This is one of the most exciting things for me and hopefully for some of you as well. Enjoy, as I talk about the first episode of Eureka Seven Astral Ocean.
http://youtu.be/-UZAUSp1jBo
Best,
Phil Bohn
Survivor Series: Japanese Attitudes Towards Sex and Implications for the Future
Hey all you crazy anime addicts out there, its me coming at you once again, the most interesting man on the AAA network, Devil Survivor. I have an extremely interesting, yet disturbing, and maybe humorous topic for you today. Recently, a survey was commissioned by the Japanese government on the attitudes of Japanese men and women aged 16-49 towards sex. So let’s take a look at the results of this study. Starting with the men 16-19, 36.1 percent said that have little interest in sex or even despised it altogether. Wow, I’m shocked that a teenage boy would ever say he hates sex, its like a Republican politician saying he hates cheating on his wife then claiming he is a family values candidate. That figure is almost double the figure reported in a 2008 survey. This survey, which was conducted in September of 2010, also found that 83.7 percent of Japanese men that are turning 20 this year are not dating anyone, and a further 49.3 percent said they have never had a girlfriend. The findings for girls in the same age group unfortunately are no better; 59 percent of them felt similarly like the young men about sex, which was up 12 percent from 2008.
So what does this all mean, you might ask. Well according to Kunio Kitamura head of the clinic of the Japanese Family Planning Association says it seems to confirm the notion that Japanese younger men are becoming ” herbivores” meaning men who do not actively seek out women or sex. What we are seeing here I think is the collision of two social phenomena at play in Japanese society creating a tsunami of sexual apathy. Women in Japan have been gaining empowerment in society in the past couple decades making more money and getting higher on the professional ladder, and this has caused Japanese women to raise their expectations of what their potential husband should make at his job. This has in turn caused Japanese men to believe that the expectations of women are too unrealistic and they cannot possible make enough money in their jobs. So more and more men are turning other means of romantic engagement such as dating sims, anime character figures, sex dolls, and other such things. Add to this the already extremely low birth rate in Japan and the high average age of the population, which is 44.8 years old, and things are not looking good for the future of Japan.
Some other findings from the survey that are of note; 40.8 percent of married couples answered that they had not had sex in the last month, up from 36.5 percent in 2008. Almost 50 percent married couples older than 40 also reported that they had not had sex in the last month. Thus confirming the widely held belief that getting married kills an otherwise healthy sexual desire haha.
This is a major social problem for Japan in a number of ways. In terms of the workforce and having a ready a supply of new young workers it would be disastrous as the birth rate is well below replacement. National defense would also be compromised as its hard to maintain an armed forces without young people to fill out the ranks. The population is projected to shrink to about 95 million by 2050 and this would cause the Japanese economy to suffer worse than anything before. Correcting this isn’t easy will probably take a generation or so to see signs of change.
Here’s the original article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/japanese-men-losing-sex-d_n_809271.html
Cheers,
Devil
Survivor Series: Holiday Handheld Wars: Triumph and More Predictions of Doom
Greetings and salutations, all you anime crack addicts anonymously looking for your next fix of deliciously, deviant, and decadent animated narcotic. Today I’m going to return a topic I talked to about in a previous post way back in September of last year; the Nintendo 3DS. However, this time I’m going to add in another element, the Playstation Vita now that its out. I’m going to be a comparison of the two on certain levels, but also an update of somethings I addressed last time and some extreme claims about the Vita.
Last time I discussed how a lot of people on the internet where predicting the doom of Nintendo and the 3DS because of the massive drop in sales about 5 months after the launch which was mishandled(if anyone can point to a really solid launch for a game console please mention it the comments). So time has shown that either is true, of course although I’m aware that the Nintendo prediction is kind of open ended because a company’s future is always up in the air, however the 3DS one has proved to be very wrong. Over the Holiday Season the 3DS sold almost 1.6 million units and the weeks following have been strong as well. Add that to the fact the 3DS sold more units in the first 8 months in the U.S. than the DS. One thing I was wrong about in the last article was my prediction of a possible redesign of the system which didn’t come about(yet) maybe because the sales have rebounded. I around thing I predicted was if a bunch of quality first party games would come out they the sales would go up; and that’s what has happened with the Mario and Mario Kart games. There are also some great three party stuff like the Monster Hunter game and more coming.
Ok on to Vita, and with its recent release in Japan on Dec.17th out of the way it looked pretty impressive with first weekend sales of 320,000. However, after that the sales have dropped off a lot and have been below the PSP. So now people predicting the end of Vita already. I really wish people would not make such wild and unfounded predictions about the future of a product that just came out. I think I Vita will pick up in the coming months, it might take a price cut, but I’m sure it will in the end. The launch library was kinda underwhelming even though there was an Uncharted game, but I think was better then the 3DS’s launch line up. Just give Vita some time.
Cheers,
Devil
Survivor Series:Spotlight-Aura Battler Dunbine
Hey triple A community, its me Devil Survivor, the most interesting man on the AAA Network, and I’m finally back with a new blog entry. Today I’m going to shine the anime spotlight on the 1980’s classic mecha show Aura Battler Dunbine. Dunbine was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, who is best known for directing the original Gundam series and a lot of other great anime series. Dunbine was the first fantasy\mecha series which inspired other series such as Escaflowne. It ran for 49 episodes and spawned three OVA sequels; Aura Battler Dunbine: Tale of Neo Byston Well , Tales From Byston Well: Garzey’s Wing, and The Wings of Rean. However, it should be noted that all three are considered to be of inferior quality to the original series. Let’s get into the story.
The setting for the story is in the parallel world of Byston Well which is kind of similar to 16 century Europe, but with one major difference; Aura technology, which allows machines to be built using life force as a power source. Chief among these machines are the Aura Battlers, insect like robots with great destruction power. The story centers around Sho Zama, a Japanese motocross racer who one night is pulled into Byston Well by a magical fairy called a Ferario to serve as pilot of a Aura Battler called the Dunbine. One of the several monarchs in Byston Well, Drake Luft has been maneuvering for sometime to attempt a power play and seize control of the surrounding kingdoms. Part of his plans involve transporting people from Upper Earth, including Sho, because they have strong aura power. Another person brought down to Byston Well to pilot a battler is Todd Guinness , the trash taking, racist, ace pilot from Boston. He becomes the main rival for Sho. Burne Bannings is Drake’s right hand man and the general of his forces,however he does not have must in the way of piloting skill. Sho eventually discovers the evil intent of Drake’s plans and defects to a group led by a noble opposed to Drake, named Nie Givun. Among this group is another person kidnapped from Upper Earth, Marvel Frozen a former cop from Texas. They along with their allies embark on a guerrilla war against Drake and to gather other kingdoms in an alliance to thwart the ambitions of Drake. After a long war in Byston Well, the story shifts to Upper Earth at the mid point of the series. Some people have criticized the series for the slow pacing in the Earth arc, but for me I think the second half of the show moves along fine, albeit with some rough spots.
Overall, Aura Battler Dunbine is a classic piece of mecha anime and one of better works of Yoshiyuki Tomino, which is saying a lot considering all the exceptional shows he has created and directed. I really enjoyed in when I watched it in 2009. So I would recommend it to any fan of mecha or fantasy anime. You can find reviews of each episode on the MAHQ website at this link: http://www.mahq.net/animation/dunbine/abdunbine/dunbinetoc.htm
Until next time, say addicted my friends.
Devil_Survivor