Spoiler Alert: Kono Subarashi Episode 2

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Deacon

I know I am late with review of Kono episode 2, but I have just been super busy last month. Sorry about that. Lets get started.

Last time when we left off, Aqua and Satou both promised to take on a kill quest to try and start making some real income to live on. The quest the both decided on seems like a simple one. Kill five giant toads in three days. Seems simple enough doesn’t it? One of those quests you would take on when you first start an MMO or something along that nature. Turns out it is a lot harder than you would think. These toads are actually giant, spanning at least three or four times taller than Aqua or Satou. After getting eaten, Satou is able to to kill two and save Aqua from the giant toads. being done for the day and feeling defeated, they both decide to go back to the guild and regroup.

Feeling beaten and wondering if the two of them really can do it all by them self, they decide to put up a flyer trying to recruit some members into their party. Aqua thinks just because she is an Arch Priest, they can limit those who join the party to people of higher ranks. After half a day of waiting around, someone finally comes up to them. A little girl by the name of Megumin, who happens to be a Crimson demon, offers to join their parts. She talks her up as this wonderful Mage who uses explosive magic, but Satou and Aqua are taking it all as a joke and laugh her off. After yelling at the to get her point across, they finally take her serious and help her register with the guild and set out to finish that kill quest.

As soon as they get back to the field with all the giant toads, Aqua runs off looking to get revenge for yesterday and ends up getting eaten again. Satou is forced to go save her. While he is saving Aqua, Megumin gets down to business. She starts concentrating and focusing her energy on one toad. For a while, I assumed she was going to wiff the shot or something but now. This little girl proves that she is the real deal. The sky starts getting dark and this toad explodes. It was amazing. Unfortunately, she is only able to use that spell one time. After both Megumin and Aqua get eaten again, Satou saves them both and carriers Megumin back to the guild. Turns out, Megumin is able to use any magic type she wants, but she refuses to use anything other than explosive type magic and because of that, she is kicked out of every other party she joins. After making a scene about some obscene things in front of some other ladies, Satou decides to keep her in the party. After getting back to the guild, Satou learns he went up four levels and they each made 36,000 of…what ever the currency is. Not sure if that is a lot or not. No idea what inflation is like in that world.

While Satou is doing math in his head about how much they would need to start making progress towards their goal, this awesome looking high ranking female knight walks into the guild and takes a look at their flyer looking for high ranking people to join the party. She walks up to Satou and introduces herself as Darkness. Seh blushes and starts stuttering while she asks if she is still able to join the party. Episode over.

Kono if quickly becoming one of my favorite shows out right now gunning for my first spot. I guess we will have to see how the rest of the season plays out. We might have a new champ.

Spoiler Alert: Prince of Stride Episode 4

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Deacon

Prince of Stride episode 4. Here we go. Side note, I only discuss parts of the episode that I feel is necessary to the story. I cut out things that I think don’t add anything to the story. Don’t worry. I don’t cut out things that are crazy important.

So this was a Ayumu heavy episode. We saw him last week chicken out when it came to jumping over the obstacles in the race, so why not develop his character in the beginning of the season. After learning their opponents are the Mihashi Stride team, Heath demonstrates a technique called vaulting, something that we all must be familiar with by now. After Hozumi goes up and demonstrates a variation of the vault, Ayumu tries and barley makes it.

After practice, Ayumu asks Hozumi if he could stay a while longer and help him with learning to vault. Hozumi agrees to help him out. Try after try after try, we see Ayumu start to get a grasp on the idea of vaulting. Cut to the event. After walking the line of the race, everyone decides to go back to the hotel and enjoy the hot spring for the night. Everyone…except Ayumu who is now where to be seen. Turns out he found a shortcut for later in the race.

Now, the race is starting. Right before the race starts, Riku’s opponent turns to him and asks if he is Tomoe Yagami’s brother. Riku says that he is. When the race starts, Riku takes off, but not for long. Rounding the first corner, he enters a tunnel that is going up hill. By the time they come out of the tunnel, Riku fell to second place. This is pretty much the tone for the rest of the race. Up until we get to Ayumu, we have been in second place. When it is Ayumu’s time to shine, he is starting to doubt himself just like last time. The only difference is that he stops doubting himself. He knows that he has to pull through for his teammates. With the last push, he blasts through the uphill part of the race, and splits off from his opponent.

Now…If this was a conventional anime, He would make the dangerous jump with ease and have a four second advantage on the last relay…But no. This is real. We see him jump off screen and then we see blood splatter and then silence. After a couple minutes of no response, the other team things they have it all but won. Then, we have a response from Ayumu. All he can do is concentrate on making it to Hozumi. Hozumi takes off and sees Ayumu hurt. Putting aside his personal feelings aside for a moment, he realizes he can’t let Ayumu’s injuries be in vain. Hozumi speeds up to catch up to his opponent.

The race is all but over. With Hozumi sprinting like a bat out of hell, Honon Stride Club wins the first round and moves on to the next. Hozumi immidetly turns around and runs back to go check on Ayumu. As Ayumu gets driven away by an ambulance, the team goes home and rests up for the next race. And with that. The episode is over.

Spoiler Alert: Kono Subarashi Episode 1

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Deacon

Walking into Kono Subarashi Sekai ni shukufuku wo, or as I am going to be calling it from now on Kono, I had no idea what to expect from it. All I knew about it is what I wrote in my Winter anime to watch out for. As far as I know, this could have been just like Sushi Police, but we don’t talk about Sushi Police.

We open up on a young man named Kazuma Satou. He is our resident shut in for the show. All he likes to do is sits inside, play video games and watches anime. Sounds like a couple of people I know. One day, he decides to go out and pick up a new game that is releasing that night. As any die hard fan of a video game, he goes to the midnight release. When he gets back, it is the morning. While walking home from the bus, he see’s one of his classmates walking by. He turns back to double check if he knew her and there he see’s it. A truck driving down the street about to hit her. Without hesitating, he jumps out and pushes her out of the way of then truck. Unfortunately, he ends up losing his life, and that is where this anime gets interesting. He is dead, and he meets with this goddess informing him that his death was in vain. It was only a tractor that was moving slowly. He just overreacted because he never goes outside.

so the goddess, who’s name is Aqua, is telling him that if he can go to this other world and defeat the Devil king’s army, he can go back to the living world, and they will grand him anything he wants in the world. But, good for Kazuma, the gods are not going to send him to fight the devil king’s army empty handed. Aqua tells them they will give him one thing to take with him, and it can be anything he wants. While he is looking at the most common requests, Aqua is sitting there eating chips telling him that he should hurry up and pick something. Since she is being such a jerk to him, he decides that he is going to use this request to his advantage. Kazuma says that he wants to take aqua with him. Down comes another goddess telling that it is ok to take her with you. And off they go.

Once they get to the world, Kazuma’s gamer instincts kick in. The first thing they go do is try to join the local guild. Only problem is that they can’t afford the registration fee. Brick wall number one. After talking to some old man in the guild, Aqua got the registration fee. Both of them are now registered. Kazuma as a merchant and Aqua as an Arch Priest which is one of the higher classes. And with that, this anime begins. Cue the montage of working and bonding with guild mates. Right at the end of the episode, they realize why they are there. They were having such a good time bonding with everyone and doing work, they forgot they are supposed to be fighting the Devil kings army. Right then, they vow to do a kill quest the next episode.

Kono Subarashi is one of those anime I wish was a video game. So far from the first episode, it seems to be funny and sounds like the story line is thought out well enough to stand on its own. The first episode left a good taste in my mouth. I’ll continue to watch it and review it so keep coming back if you want to know my thoughts. 7.5/10

Prince of Stride: episode 3 Overview and thoughts

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Deacon

Episode 3 of Prince of Stride is now here, and by my 3 episode rule, I am going to continue to watch it, so these reviews will continue along side the show. With that out of the way, Lets get into this overview.

Spoiler warning.

We open up where we last left off. Right in front of a concert. As I told you guys in the last overview, Galaxy Standard is the name of their first opponents who are highly regarded stride club members, but also an extremely popular Band. After watching them for a few minutes, the team decided to go into their green room. In the hallway, Takeru and Riku run into The members of Galaxy standard (Reiji, Shizuma, Bantaro, Tasuku, Asuma and Kuede). As some of the member’s of team Honan become star struck, they have a pleasant conversation about the old days and one of them asks about Riku’s brother. Can we just know more about him? So far, all we know is he is over seas and some pop stars know about him. One of the Gal-Stan members went all but crazy and asked where Kyosuke. Once that question was asked, they all went into the room and went over the running order.

Cut to being outside. Here are the line ups. First runners are Riku vs Asuma. Seconds runners are Hozumi and Bantaro. Third runners are Heath and Tasuku. Fourth Runners are Ayumu and Kaede. Finally, the fifth runners are Takeru and Reiji. Now that we got all that out of the way, lets get on with the race.

Right out of the gate, Riku has an advantage. He seems to be faster than Asuma. While jumping over the obstacles, they close in to the second runners. Even though Riku is ahead of Asuma, Shizuma, Gal-Stan’s relationer, tells Bantero to go ahead and take off. Out of no where, Asuma speeds ahead of Riku. With Riku finally showing up, Hozumi takes off being a couple seconds behind Bantaro. With Bantaro essentially holding the lead over Hozumi, they reach a zig-zagging bridge. At the last second, Hozumi jumps off of the hand rail to jump in front of Bantaro. as we come up to the third leg of this race, Heath takes off only to have Tasuku fire off what seems like milliseconds later. Tasuku forcing his way in front of, literally nudging Heath out of the way to take the lead, and will keep it the whole way to the fourth leg of the race.

As Ayumu and Kaede both take off relatively close to each other, a gap between them keeps building and building. As Ayumu starts to realize that the gap is building and building, he starts to think that he isn’t good enough and that he doesn’t stand a chance and wants to end the race and leave right there. Although he skips some obstacles on his way, he keeps up the pace and shows up to the final leg of the race. Being behind Reiji about 5 or so seconds, Takeru takes off like a bat outta heck. With Reiji turning the final corner, it looks like this race is all but done and over with. But with one final stride…well, I’ll let the time speak for itself.

Although they lost, Hozumi’s older sister shows up furious. Since they lost, they would have lost out on a sponsor, but since she heard that Gal-Stan’s sponsor is a rival clothing company of her, she decides to keep the sponsorship on the table for them. And with that, the episode is over and I am happy. This show has really got its claws into me in the little amount of time. I am keeping up with this show. I love it. So far I give it 8/10. Stop teasing me about Riku’s brother and just come out with it.

Gate: Season 2 Episode 1 Review

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Deacon

Season two of one of my favorite anime’s has started. It also made my list of anime’s to watch out for this season. Gate is here and I am pumped. I will not be going over season one. If you want to catch up, go check out season 1 on CrunchyRoll. Here we go. Spoiler Warning.

We open up right about where we left off in season 1. The negotiation are still being worked on so in order to try and speed things up, the JSDF (Japan Self-Defense Force) hosts a garden party for the senate. During this party, most of the head senators are taken to the side my Itami to show them just how Rifles and Mortars work. After seeing the devastating power, the senators want to engage in negotiations right away, but have to be evacuated. Zorzal, Pina older brother and next in line to become king, is on his way to see what this garden party is all about. When he gets there, he is confused and suspicious of Pina, but once he tastes the food, he takes what food there is and ends up leaving back to the palace. Once in the Red Light district (I guess every world calls it that), Recon team 3 set up base in a fairly big house.

Once there a member of Recon team 3, Mari Kurokawa, serves as the nurse for anyone in the area who needs help weather it be members of the JSDF or locals who are injured. During her time there, she meets a Harpy who is also a hooker. The Harpy basically asks for the morning after pill. After feeling like she can trust Mari and calling the office a safe place, she takes her leave.

Meanwhile, Itami and Pina along with Souichirou Kuwahara and Shino Kuribayashi arrive at Pina’s home. They decide to stay there for the night as it is late in the day and the negotiations are to start soon. While all this is going on, the dark elf back at the JSDF base is asking people how she can make up for the mistreatment of Itami and what he cares about. She is told that he cares about 3 people. That is all we hear from them. Later in the night, we are back in the medical office with Mari. We hear someone banging on the door. A soldier and Mari move towards the door with their guns drawn. Turns out it is the Harpy again with more anime lady…things. I have no idea what to call them. Turns out, all the animal girls are scared. Just like in real life, these anime people get scared before an earth quick. The ground starts shaking and episode over. If it is anything like the novel or manga was, it is about to get real.

And there you have it. Having read the manga issues, I am so pumped for this season. All for one particular episode that should be coming out next week, or this week. I’m not entirely sure, but you will know it when you see it. 8.5/10 Go watch it.

RWBY Episode 9 Review

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Deacon

No small talk this time. Straight into RWBY. Spoiler alert.

RWBY opens up where we left off last time. Pyrrha and Penny are about to fight, while Ruby and Mercury are in a stand off. The countdown has been given. The fight starts and oh my gosh this fight it amazing. We all know Pyrrha can manipulate metal, and we all know that Penny is a robot, so we should be able to figure out what is going to happen. Penny and Pyrrha start exchanging blows back and forth. Penny is shooting lazers from her swords. Pyrrha is actually seems to be off her game in this fight. With the weight of the decision she has to make and what had happen to Jaune last episode, I think she is not on her A game, and it starts to show. She looks down at her spear and shield and they start to look distorted, which I can only assume is the doing of Emerald in the stands. Right then, she looks up and Penny is holding out her swords ready to strike, except instead of having her 6 or so swords, she keeps spreading them out into more and more. Now we know this is the doing of Emerald.

At that moment, Pyrrha uses what looks like a magnetic pulse to divert the swords coming at her, but since she sees more than is actually there, she uses a little bit too much power and…sadly, the swords wrap around penny and end up tearing her to bits. Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence for our fallen robot friend.

While all this is going on, we see Mercury keeping Ruby busy. At one point, Ruby is finally able to get around him and sprint to the door, only to see the ending of the battle. Ruby breaks down into tears while Mercury takes off, not wanting to be seen by someone. In the wake of the incident, Cinder takes over the broadcast and yaps for a little trying to put fear in the hearts of all the citizens. Cue Grimm invasion.

Grimm start invading the city. At that moment Ozpin tells Ironwood to use the army he brought with him. We move into one of the three ships that are sitting outside. Blue 4 calls to the leaders of the other ships, Blue 2 and Blue 3. Blue 2 answers and gets into position. Blue 3 doesn’t answer so he calls back to them. Little did he know, Neopolitan was already in the ship disguised as a member of the squad. She ends up killing everyone in the ship and releasing an old friend. You all know and love him. Say it with me. Roman Torchwick. That’s right. He has been locked up in the ship since the end of season 2 and he is now free. He tanks control of the ship and shoots down the other two. Just as that happens, three small aircrafts show up in beacon. When the doors open, we are greeted by Adam, the young man from the Black trailer. Can you say intense?

This weeks episode is equally emotional as last weeks episode and about ten times more action packed. I don’t know how they keep doing it, but Roosterteeth keeps me on the edge of my seat with this series. It has gotten to the point where I honestly have no idea what is to come next. For all I know, we might lose Blake to Adam.

“Gate” season 2 premiering on CrunchyRoll.

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Deacon

A couple days ago, I wrote about the second season of Gate that would be premiering on the 8th this month. Earlier today, It was confirmed by Crunchyroll that the series would be simulcasting, meaning it will air on Crunshyroll an hour after it premieres in Japan. I gave a small overview of what season two has in store in a previous article, but in case you missed it here you go.

“Season two of GATE picks up where the last season left off; On August 20XX, a gate suddenly appears in Tokyo’s Ginza district, unleashing a portal where monsters, medieval knights and other fantasy beings come from another world and wreak havoc on Tokyo. The Japanese Defense Force take action against these monsters and push them back into the “Gate”. Third Reconnaissance Team is dispatched to the “Special Region” lead by officer (and otaku) Yoji Itami. On their travels, they are joined by a beautiful elf girl who is a survivor from the dragon’s rampage and guide the group across the dangerous new world. This second season covers the “Flame Dragon Arc.” “

Catch up on season one of Gate on Crunchy roll before you start season two. I strongly recommend it.

Source:

Crunchy Roll

Favorite Four: Anime

Posted on December 31, 2015 by Deacon

Anime is just amazing to me, so it is no secret that I spend a lot of my extra time watching some of my favorite old school anime like Naruto, Bleach and Trigun as well as finding newer series to watch. Well, with another year gone, I figured I would share my picks for top 4 animes that aired in 2015. This is just my personal rankings. The standings are in no particular order and are not based on anything like viewing number. These are all just personal preference.

Number 4: Food Wars: Shokugeki No Soma

Food Wars: Shokugei No Soma came out of left field for me. I started watching it after hearing about it from a friend. I have to admit, hearing the premise of the series did not sell me right away, but once I got through the first episode and would count the hours until the next episode came out. Yukihira Soma is the son of Joichiro Yukihira, owner of the popular local restaurant named “Yukihira”. Together they run the restaurant and have the occasional cook off, where Soma has yet to beat his father once in over 450 battles. Right before Soma starts high school, his father Joichiro makes a shocking announcement. He is going to shut down the restaurant for three years to cook abroad. Joichiro suggests to Soma that he attend Totsuki Culinary Acedemy to further hone is skills as a chef. Thinking this is going to be a walk in the park, Soma is shocked when he arrives at the school and learn that there is a graduation rate of less than 1%. Throughout the first season, you watch Soma grow as not only a chef, but as a person. Meeting friends and educators that would teach him things her would never of had the chance to learn had he stayed at home and continued to work in the family restaurant. One of the better animes I have watched this year, and has even revitalized my love of cooking.

Number 3: Is it wrong to try and pick up a girl in a dungeon

Is it wrong to try and pick up a girl in a dungeon has to be what the perfect RPG game is. Funny enough, I heard about this anime through Roosterteeth. In this anime, adventurers follow gods who take a physical presence. People in the same guild following the same god or goddess are called a “Famillia” named after that god. Is it wrong follows the story of a fourteen year old boy named Bell Cranel under the goddess named Hestia. Being the only person in the Hestia Famillia, Bell goes into the dungeons every day to try and make enough money for himself and Hestia to survive on. One day while a bigger famillia was in the dungeon doing…a “Raid” for lack of a better word, a Minotaur managed to escape the floor and made its way to Bell. Having Bell pinned into a corner, he thought he was done for. Right at the last second, Aiz Wallenstein, one of the most well know swordsman, comes and saves him. Bell instantly fell in love with Aiz. As the story continues, you get to watch Bell grow in strength and finally unlock his magical powers. He meets many people along the way including a little girl with cat ears who becomes his companion to help carry all the loot they get in the dungeon, and an outcast-ed weapons smith who exclusively smiths for Bell. This anime is full of deception, adversity and many heart jerking moments.

Number 2: Tribe Cool Crew

Before you judge me about this one, hear me out all the way until the end. Tribe Cool Crew follows the journey of Haneru Tobitatsu, a young, short grade school student who Idolizes Jay-el, the famous dancer. One day while practicing his dancing outside of a building, he runs into a shy girl named Kanon Otosaki. Before Kanon met Haneru, she would post anonymous dance videos online, but would soon start emerging out of her shell after meeting Haneru. Together, Haneru and Kanon would form a dancing crew called Cool Crew. After having a dance battle against some of the better local dancers called Tribal Soul, they would all come together and form the team Tribe Cool Crew. Their mission: Become backup dancers for Jay-el. And with the invitation to Dancers Road, a secret competition to find new backup dancers for Jay-el, they would be one step closer but they would need to beat some of the best dance crews in the world to win. Along the way, we meet some amazing characters like Twin sisters who mirror their movement with each other, two young boys who step dance and two overly energetic people with an absurdly long name. The only gripe I had with this anime is the dancing sequences are done in 3D which threw me off the first time I watched it, but quickly became one of the many reasons I loved this anime. It is different and I enjoy it, and the sound track is just flat out amazing.

Number 1: Fate/Stay Night:Unlimited Blade Works

Fate/Stay Night is an action fantasy anime. In the Fate/Stay world, magic is real. Every mage household has a magic crest they leave to the oldest son who then becomes the house hold mage. Shirio Emiya who is a high school student and a survivor of the fourth holy grail war has now been dragged into the fifth great holy grail war. In the holy war, seven mages, known as masters, will summon a legendary hero from any point in time. These heros are known as servants. Throughout this war, Shirio and his servant Saber team up with one of his classmates named Rin Tosaka and her servant Archer. Along the way, We learn that there is more to Shirio than meets the eye, and that a servant can really be summoned from any point in time. I don’t want to give much more away from this anime. There are many twists and turns in this series. The animation is nicely done, action packed and very good voice acting. I would recommend this to anyone who is either an anime vet, or is a new comber. Very easy to follow along.

There you have it. My top four animes from 2015. Honorable mentions go to Death Parade and One Punch Man. As I said before, this list if just my personal preference. This is based on nothing other than my personal taste.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION To Blu-Ray!

Posted on January 5, 2015 by radioactivemouse

In a not-so-surprising move, Studio Khara has announced that they will put the iconic 90’s anime series on blu-ray, as reported by io9.

It’s not like they’ve tried to re-energize the series before, there’s Death and Rebirth, End of Evangelion, Revival of Evangelion, Death True (2), 1.11, 2.22, 3.141….ok, you know what I’m talking about. But it appears as though it’s the original TV series that’s being ported to blu-ray. The unfortunate part about it is that it’s currently seeing a Japan release, with no real timetable on whether or not it’s going to be released stateside.

Traditionally, if the demand is high enough, it will come. Currently, if any company brings it here, it may just be Funimation since ADV no longer exists (the Evangelion franchise now resides with AEsir Holdings).

The return of the original TV series means the return of the most mind-numbing, animation-less (well a little…really a little) narrative last two episodes that many found to be the biggest cock block in anime history…and the reason for the release of Death and Rebirth. Still, I’d like to have a blu-ray of the series since I already have the show on DVD. But will the blu-ray mean an HD upgrade or will they stick to the TV format?

I suppose we’ll see.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a dystopian post-apocalyptic story about Shinji, a teenager who’s only hope of saving humanity is to pilot a giant hybrid alien-ish robot called an Evangelion to fight against a variable host of creatures called Angels (of which humans have experimented on to create the Evangelion). Needless to say, teenage drama ensues amidst the ever-so-violent backdrop of Tokyo-3 and sexual tensions are high between Shinji and the other women in the show. It’s mind bending, high action, and mentally stimulating as the character deal with pain, defeat, and death.

It’s one of my top favorite anime of all time.

TOUHOU CON 2014 Cosplay And Convention Pics!

Posted on September 26, 2014 by radioactivemouse

Touhou Con is a new convention focusing on a genre of game in the infamous “bullet hell” brand of games (top down shooters characterized by the screen filled with enemy fire). With only a few months of promotion and a limited budget, this convention still garnered around 500 people and a pretty solid list of guests and musical performances.

But enough about the con, let’s get to what you really want…COSPLAY PICS!