It’s token entry time! I have actually been meaning to post about a few other things, but I’ve not really had the time to get around to it.

One thing I have been wondering about the value of me posting about is the upcoming Spring season. Honestly, for a season with so many new shows, there’s actually surprisingly little I have a huge amount of interest in, and even less that I actually have something to say about. This isn’t really to say that it looks like a particularly bad season – it’s improbable that a season with so many shows won’t have at least one good title amongst the barrage of generic crap – just that there’s little that appeals directly to me.

I might have been interested in Guin Saga if I hadn’t already read a few of the novels that Vertical printed in English a few years back. Whilst the sadomasochistic gay themes Aroduc mentioned don’t hit until far, far later into the series 100+ volume run, what actual content there was in those tomes really wasn’t all that involving – the fact that I’ve still got volumes I’ve not got around to reading should make that clear enough. It’s really just incredibly by-the-numbers fantasy, and, early on at least, simply lacks the kind of complexity the better examples of the genre sport. There’s too little going on to be particularly interesting.

KyoAni’s latest effort – a 4-panel adaptation K-On! – I can’t really imagine making the kind of impression that Lucky Star did. Lucky Star had something of a common base with those watching in that such a large part of humour was so otaku-centric. Whilst attempting to form a band without an ounce of musical ability isn’t exactly an unusual occurrence, I can’t really say it’s something that particularly resonates with me – It could be the funniest show in the world, but I doubt it’d click with me even if it was. I’m sure the show will sport KyoAnis usual stellar production values, but it just doesn’t appeal to me.

Whilst I’m increasingly sharing Authors present aversion of Gonzo productions (though I really must finish Linebarrels!), I’ll probably at least give Saki and Shangri-La a chance, largely thanks to the fact that they are both going to be on Crunchy, meaning it’ll take very little effort for me to do so. That said, post-Strike Witches, I’m really not sure Gonzo have been learning the right lessons from that shows success, particularly in terms of crazy fanservice and the over-abundance of. Still, if nothing else, I’m sure the use of CG effects in Saki is going to be hilarious, at least for people like myself.

When it comes down to it, I think there’s probably only maybe four shows I have any significant amount of interest in – Full Metal and Hayate get a pass for simply being Full Metal and Hayate, though both have seen significant staff changes since their previous incarnations (and reaction to the Hayate OAV has been less than glowing). Then there’s Summer Storm registering interest for being Akiyuki Shinbo (the second half of Negima!? turned up on DVD today. Must get around to watching it). Then there’s Valkyria Chronicles.

I have, of course, played the original Valkyria Chronciles game on the PS3 – it’s just about the best game presently on the system – but the story, whilst fine for what it needs to be, strikes me as being a little too thin to particularly work for a full TV anime series. I have to admit that when the series director said that he intended to insert a few more elements into the series to mix things up a bit, I was actually relieved about the meddling for once. I honestly think the series could really do with it – the thought of them adding a love-triangle between Welkin, Alicia and Faldio fails to bother me, in so much that I think it’ll serve to give a far more interesting spin on many of the mid-series events.

It’s kind of funny seeing which minor 7’s they’ve included in the cast thus far. For those who’ve not played it, the game has got a rather sizeable secondary cast – you need all the extra characters aside from the central story characters in order to be able to build up a squad of a reasonable size for the games missions. These characters have just about enough personality to make them distinctive, something largely provided by a combination of appearance, unique dialogue, the small amount of text provided in the games encyclopaedia, which provides an increasing amount of background information on a character the more you use them.

Obviously some minor 7s are more popular than others. Vyse and Aika (and the 7s medic) are popular thanks to the same thing which will probably keep them out of the anime version – they were borrowed from Dreamcast sky-pirate game Skies of Arcadia. One of the most popular minor 7s, Edy, starred in her own additional DLC missions (coming soon to English). The minor 7s they are pulling into the anime series seem to primarily be those which also appeared as part of the Edy Detachment in the extra download content, which seems to have resulted in couple of slightly odd choices. For one thing, we have Susie, a character whose largest defining characteristic is the fact that she’s a pacifist – in the game, this had an annoying habit of manifesting itself as a tendency for her to outright refuse to actually shoot someone when ordered to. Kind of frustrating, really.

Aisha Neumann from the game

The quirkiest character who seems to be appearing in the anime version is probably Aisha Neumann, though. In the game, she’s kind of a janky character. Apparently, she’s only twelve, yet she’s a Shocktrooper – that is, the anti-personnel class, who exist to absorb lot of damage whilst mowing down opponents with machinegun and flamethrower fire – which is clearly at odds with her, well, being twelve. That said, the only real difference, in terms of appearance, between the characters of a particular class and gender in the game is that they swap the characters head – so Aisha was a twelve year-old with the body of a fully grown woman. Whilst game Aisha has the voice, background and character traits of a twelve year-old (her stats drop if she doesn’t have other members of your squad near her, as she gets lonely), the fact that she doesn’t look like it makes it easy to forget.

Minor 7s from the anime promo video – from left to right we have Marina (sniper/loner), Homer (mechanic), Edy (Shocktrooper), Aisha (loli Shocktrooper) and Susie (useless Scout)

In the anime version, though, it looks like Aisha is an actual twelve year-old in stature, which just makes the whole character (and the concept that she’s enlisted in the militia, genius or not) even odder. I have to wonder what they’ll actually be having her do in the anime – seeing her mowing down the opposition with a machinegun would be hilarious, but also all kinds of wrong (which, admittedly, would just make it that much funnier).

Still, they’ve been making the right kind of noises about the show, and really, it’d take a monumental amount of effort for them to really cock the production up. Not that good source material has ever been a hindrance to awfulness when producing anime.

Hmmm, it seems like I’ve actually written almost a thousand words on something I didn’t have much to say about ^^;

In other things, I’m still playing Star Ocean 4. In all honestly, it’s really, really bad – the writing is terrible, the characters outside the initial three are near unbearable, and the dungeons are not only overly long, but also have an annoying habit of repeating the same puzzle over and over to the point of driving the player insane. Worse is that they have a habit of punishing the player for even daring to explore the dungeons (seriously, the thing with the Light Ring recharges, and the lack of, was moronic). Yet, I still find myself playing it. I don’t know what it is about it, yet despite the fact that I’m finding much of the game so painful, I’m still finding it horrifically complusive. I think it’s largely because it’s something I can play whilst listening to podcasts – I’m somewhat beyond caring about the plot at this point, so not catching everything which is being said is not an issue.

The games not so compulsive that I couldn’t separate myself away from the game long enough to play Mad World on the Wii. Mad World’s a game that’s absolutely worth playing, but not really worth buying – that play through will only take most around three to four hours, and I doubt there’s much replay value. What really makes the game worth playing is the running commentary, which manages to do the impossible by being even more tasteless than the games excessive violence. It’s utterly hilarious, but so very, very wrong.

Also, the fact that they included Pirate Hats as an item you can use to distract Ninjas is awesomely weird, particularly when it’s a Japanese game.

In terms of anime, I’ve not really watched a huge amount this last week – I did watch MariMite’s third series on DVD over the weekend, but I want to make a separate post on that matter in the next couple of days. Presently waiting for the Akira blu-ray, and that Hayate OAV, to turn up in the mail.