Financial Crisis - The Direct Approach

This... I have discovered pure insanity. I have found Akumetsu. What's Akemetsu, you ask?



This is the story of one high school student's crusade against the financial corruption destroying Japan. Shou's methods are many and varied, but always quite brutal against those he deems evil. He's also got an extra advantage in his crusade. Dying doesn't seem to kill him permanently. Quite the handy alibi for the mysterious masked assassin to end up dead after each kill.

I'm only about 20 chapters in, so I'll be going back for more of the crazy now.

Unplugged

Last Tuesday, I was unceremoniously dumped out of the online world. My video card died without warning. The good news was that it was still under warranty. Unfortunately, the replacement was out of stock for several days. It's really amazing how much of my time is normally taken up both working and playing on my computer. With this disruption, I had to find my fun elsewhere.

One day's worth of entertainment came from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere which I highly recommend. I ended up reading it cover to cover in one sitting. It's the story of Richard Mayhew, a man who falls through the cracks of society quite literally due to a single act of kindness. He finds himself in London Below, the forgotten or ignored or possibly non-existent world entirely hidden from the surface Above, struggling to survive and regain his former life.

On another note, I've discovered a rather odd thing. It is much easier for me to rant at length about something bad than it is to extol something good. It's not that I have any less to say, but that I'd much rather the reader/viewer/whatever discover the joys and surprises themselves than have me spoil them. I never know how much to say since it must be enough to peak curiosity without saying too much. I probably err too much on the side of caution, but I'll let you decide for yourself when you read it.

Take a Resort Vacation

Enough complaining about bad TV. We've got Wii goodness today. The Wii Sports Resort is open for business, and it delivers! This resort has 12 different sports and multiple modes for each. I haven't given all of them the time they deserve yet, so I'm just going to hit a few highlights.

First, we've finally got what we've been waiting for: Wii sword dueling. It works surprisingly well, in a simplified manner. Since the two blades can't physically connect, hitting your opponent's guard causes your Mii to stumble back and leave himself more open. It's a little silly conceptually, but it works in practice. We had three people playing that night, and we had an interesting rock/paper/scissors dynamic. Each of us could consistently beat exactly one other person. We're going to need a rematch soon. After some practice against the computer, I have a much better idea of how to properly defeat someone's guard.

Next up, and possibly my favorite so far, is the archery. The rules are simple. You get three arrows per target, and you score more points (up to 10 per arrow) depending on how close you are to a bulls eye. Of course, once you go beyond the beginner course the targets start moving. The physics are also rather impressive. You need to compensate for both wind and distance to score well.

Bowling's back, and the basic game will seem very familiar to anyone who played the original Wii Sports. Fun, yes, but what caught my eye was the 100-pin game. Not only is it fun to knock over that many pins at once, but I got to witness an amazing score. I broke 1000, but my opponent managed over 2.5k. If not for a few 99s that became spares, that would have been a perfect game.

The last one I'm going to mention tonight (and believe me, there's so much more I could) is the jet ski. I have to wonder if they brought in some of the old team from Waverace 64 for this one. The water physics are great. The controls are a little strange. The Wiimote and nunchuck are held as if they are the two grips on the handle bars. Some players I saw got the two out of sync rather than keeping them a straight line. This makes the Wii confused. Once you get the hang of it, it works well.

I've only begun to explore all the different options. Judging from the portion I've played extensively, though, it's well worth picking up.

One Short of a Dozen, Six Short of Sense

I had far too much time on my hands today, so I headed over to Crunchy Roll to try another of this season's new anime. Since I've been toying with the idea of alternate universes lately, I selected 11eyes. Nine of the twelve episodes have been translated so far, and I've fully caught up. The basic plot of the series has six high schoolers are uncontrollably thrust into a different world which they call the "Red Night". Appropriately enough, everything is tinted red there. They get attacked by various monsters and their apparent controllers, the Black Knights.

Here's where things get vague, I'm afraid. The Knights refer to our "heroes" as fragments, and for some reason this means they must be destroyed. What they are fragments of and why they need to die is basically left as an exercise to the viewer because they're certainly not going to tell you. They also are holding Lisette, a girl who they claim to be a witch, captive within a crystal. Who is she, why is she important, and why don't they just kill her? Hard to say. All we really have to go on after 3/4 of the series are a few random flashbacks/visions of a ruined kingdom. The king, Velad, claims the precognitive Eye of Aeon which he shares with Kakeru Satsuki, our protagonist, will bring unimaginable suffering. There's also a woman, Liselotte, who decides to destroy the world once she hears Velad has been killed. From the naming similarity Lisette and Liselotte are probably somehow connected, but that's not a lot to go on.

Of course, the biggest twist is still to be revealed, and yet is so blindingly obvious. The Black Knights clearly going to be revealed as having good motives (despite all the attempted murders). Of course, that means that the entire series probably could have been avoided simply by talking it out in the first episode which would have made for a short show. That, or a more interesting show where they try to work together to contain/destroy whatever evil is in these fragments without sacrificing innocent lives. We'd need a new villain, but maybe the crystal girl would actually have something to do then.

Anyway, back in the real world we have our "high schoolers." They certainly don't look the part. They're all drawn far too young. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but the animators seem determined to insert at least one gratuitous panty shot per episode. If this were normal fanservice, it would simply be dramatically inappropriately timed. Instead, it's downright uncomfortable. Sadly I looked it up after watching, and the reason for this turns out to be even creepier. 11eyes is based on an adult (read: porn) game. Sigh... Listen, Japan. Anime is a hard enough hobby to defend as it is. So many great works are lost on the world at large because they can point to this trash as representative of the medium. Cut it out!

Not done ranting yet. Now let's take a look at the characters.

Kakeru Satsuki - Our main protagonist. In the very first scene, his sister impales both him and herself on a bladed chain in the Red Night. Cut to high school where we find him wearing a fancy eyepatch. Apparently, the way he remembers it is that his sister committed suicide with the flashback just showing some broken glass in a bathroom. Once pulled into the Red Night, his main concern is protecting Yuka. He does this by abandoning her at just about every opportunity and getting into easily misunderstood positions with Misuzu. He also has a glowing yellow eye that can see the future. Whether using this will mortally wound him seems to be completely up to random chance.

Yuka Minase - Damsel in distress. Spends most of the series with no powers or purpose other than getting threatened. Episode 7 finally awakens her power nullification ability and transforms her into a sociopath gladly willing to ignore danger to anyone but herself and Kakeru. Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.

Misuzu Kusakabe - Onmyouji and swordgirl. Dueled her own family, including killing her father, for five magic swords because she idolized an exiled ancestor. This ancestor turns out to be one of the Black Knights who is willing to murder innocents and engineering the razing of a city. Nice role model. Currently shocked into a near vegetative state by this discovery.

Kukuri Tachibana - Kakeru's sister. No, it's not confirmed but come on! She looks exactly like her, she has the exact same name, she has the exact same power from the episode 1 flashback, and she has no memory! Given that Kakeru, Kukuri, and Yuka all were orphans, couldn't the family name be explained by adoption? How can the characters be so incredibly dense?

Yukiko Hirohara - Cheerful optimist/deadly knife fighter. Her mind was fractured because she was forced to be a living weapon in Drasuvania (Maybe Velad's country? Again, kinda vague). Her personalities swap depending on whether she's wearing her glasses. She finally learns to trust and befriend people again over the first half of the series. By far the most sympathetic character until she violently murders the person she loves.

Takahisa Tajima - Pyrokineticist and lone wolf. Finally learns the value of friendship, family, and love from Yukiko. Gets rewarded by having his adoptive mother randomly murdered, going insane, and burning down his own home city. In the end, he's slain by Yukiko at his own request since he realizes he's doing something incredibly stupid and yet STILL CAN'T STOP. Maybe the explanation of being unable to control the fire demon inside of him might have made more sense if his powers had ever actually be established as demonic!

Seriously, who thought all this was a good idea?! There are so many loose plot threads, it seems impossible to tie them all up in the remaining three episodes. I'm not sure I'll ever know since the characters are now so twisted, unlikable, and useless I don't think I'll even bother. It's a pity, really. It started off decently enough save for the aforementioned fanservice. Around the midpoint, however, it just went into free fall.

Humanizing Monsters

With New Moon in theaters, Twilight is once again the topic of massive internet wars. Given what I've read I definitely don't want to be seen as defending the series, but there's one argument from the anti camp that I have to contest. Time and again I've seen people complaining about the vampires not acting like vampires. That's not in the physical sense of being sparkling, invulnerable, perfect superhumans, nor in the personal sense that Edward comes off more as a dangerously obsessed stalker than any sort of romantic ideal (which in a way is quite the traditional vampire). No, this criticism is essentially limiting all possible vampires to the Bela Lugosi typecast. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there's any problem with the truly monstrous interpretation or his iconic performance. What I'm saying is that authors needn't be limited to just that.

I suppose my main objection is to the concept of "always chaotic evil" races. They can be alright as random mooks, but it's hard to have any vested interest in someone whose motive is simply evil. This is particularly nonsensical when it comes to vampires. One of the relatively constant features of the mythos is that the creature was once human. Sometimes that's wholly suppressed by some demonic* force, but it's far more interesting if at least something is retained from the vampire's former life. Whether this manifests simply in mannerisms or becomes a full blown quest for salvation, it gives something to build upon. Just because a lot of people feel that Twilight executed this poorly doesn't mean we should avoid the attempt.

On the flip side, that doesn't mean that all vampires should suddenly be good. Far from it. The lure of power at such a bloody price should more often than not draw in the morally ambiguous, the Randian egoist, and the full blown insane. Just keep in mind that even an insane man has motives. They may not be understandable outside his own head, but they're there. Find out what makes them tick, and then you'll have interesting vamps.

* Side note on demons, I don't even give them an "always chaotic evil" pass. Primal forces of darkness are fine as far as they go, but the underworlds of the Disgaea series or Gaiman's interpretation of Lucifer are far more interesting as people.

Back from Thanksgiving

Ah, the awkwardness of being home with the family... There were ups and downs as always, and I'll spare the internet the gory personal details. Instead, let's look at the fun stuff!

First off, multiplayer Mario gets even more insane with more people! Most times we had three people, and the head jumping was deadly until we learned the secret. You can voluntarily bubble without dying! A simple push of the A button saves your life. Of course, if everyone does so it still ends the level. We made it through all eight regular worlds and even started on the secret bonus levels thanks to this. I was happy to see that world 8 is genuinely difficult. I wonder if it will be harder with only one death between me and the map screen, or easier with fewer people to land on me.

Next up, five player Battle Load Runner! It's hard to believe that a TurboGrafx-16 game has held up over all these years, but it has. The massive digging melee just gets silly, especially when some players dedicate themselves to saving as many lives as possible rather than winning. Get the gold, get out, and get all three 8-bit songs stuck in your head. We were playing this on my brother's Wii, so I'll be needing to add it to my Virtual Console library soon.

Finally, the day after I got back was the usual Sunday anime night. This week's selection was Coyote Ragtime Show, a scifi adventure which doesn't take itself too seriously. If you liked Outlaw Star, then you'll probably enjoy this one as well. We follow the Robin Hood-esque "Mister" and his crew as they search for the lost treasure of Pirate King Bruce (he made up for the name in sheer awesomeness). Meanwhile, they've got both the cops and the Guild (essentially the space mob) on their tale. You may have already guessed, but wackiness ensues. Don't go looking for deep meaning here. It's just a fun little 12-episode ride.

Return of the 2D

Mario's getting back to his roots in this new 2D platformer, and I'm glad to say the game delivers. Aside from a few new power ups, this game is an excellent blend of Mario 3 and Mario World. Of course, if you've played it's DS predecessor you already know all that. The helicopter helmet has to be my favorite addition since it gives so much vertical freedom. It's more limited in distance than previous flight modes like the cape, but the use-anywhere convenience can't be beat.

As entertaining as the single player is, the most intriguing bit is the coop mode. I've only gotten to try a few levels of this so far, but it really makes the game completely different. First off, so long as at least one player lives the level continues. After a bit, the dead float back onscreen in a bubble. This is both good and bad. Mario had a nasty tendency of dropping his newly resurrected friends down pits that night. Speaking of pits, the platforming becomes even trickier since you can get in each other's way! Be kind, and don't use your partner as a stepping stool.

This was only with two people. I can only imagine the chaos of a full four players!