Fairy Tail

Aside from Mnemosyne, I’ve also been reading Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima, the man behind Rave Master.

From left to right: Mirajane, Elfman, Gray,Plue, Marakov, Lucy, Happy, Natsu, Loki, Kana

Fairy Tail’s story focuses on the young members of the magicians guild Fairy Tail. The main cast comprises of Natsu Dragonil, Lucy Heartphilia, Happy, Gray Fullbuster and Erza Scarlet, each with their own unique abilities. Initially, Natsu, Lucy and Happy form a team to take on missions for money, but are later joined by Gray and Erza.

Natsu is a fire mage who uses the combat style Fire Dragon Slayer, taught to him by his foster father, the Ingeel the Salamander, a dragon. Dragon Slayer is considered a “Lost Magic” due to its destructive nature, and only one other character uses Dragon Slayer, albeit of a different element. Despite being a mage, he’s extremely tough, and can consume fire to regenerate and increase his powers. He suffers from motion sickness from any kind of transportation, except when he’s carried by Happy.

Lucy is a Stellar Spirit Mage; she can summon spirits to fight for her using Keys. She currently has 6 of the 12 Ecliptic Zodiac Keys, which are extremely rare (since there are only 12, each corresponding to the creatures of the Zodiac). She also carries a whip, which she uses quite well.

Happy is actually a cat, and a companion of Natsu’s from before the main storyline. He is a mage, but it is unknown what kinda powers he has. He can, however, use transformation magic to give himself a pair of wings. He is capable of flying at an incredible speed.

Gray practices Ice Alchemy; molding ice to a shape that the user wishes. Gray is often accused of being an exhibitionist; tis is due to his rpevious training when his teacher told him to remove his clothes on a snowy mountain so that he’d get used to the cold before he can actually learn how to manipulate ice. Gray is constantly at loggerheads with Natsu, which Lucy suspects may have to do with the nature of their magic (one fire and one ice).

Erza is a swordsmage who uses the magic Ex-quip (short for Exchanging Equipment) to switch between weapons during a fight. She is also the only swordsmage capable of Exquipping armor during battles. She also likes to use Exquip to change clothes. She is also an S-Class mage, one of the 5 in Fairy Tail. She’s one of the few who can stop Gray and Natsu’s bickering without even having to lift a finger.

The story begins with Natsu arriving at a town in search for Igneel with Happy. They meet Lucy there, who isn’t in Fairy Tail yet but wants to join. After a short adventure with Natsu defeating a mage pretending to be him, he brings Lucy to Fairy Tail and they form a team.

Gray and Erza tag along in some of their missions, forming what Mirajane, the waitress in Fairy Tail’s bar and once an S-Class mage herself, calls the strongest team in Fairy Tail. Gray, Natsu and Erza all show themselves to be extraordinary; Natsu defeated a fellow user of Dragon Slayer Gazille the Iron Dragon, an S-Class mage from Phantom Lord. Gray also defeated an S-Class mage, Jubia of the Element Four from Phantom Lord. Erza in a weakened state defeated S-Classed mage and strongest of the Element Four, Aria, in a single swipe.

So far, 98 chapters have been released. The current arc is the Tower of Paradise arc, with Erza’s past being explored. Natsu defeats Gerard, a powerful mage attempting to revive Zeref, the most evil mage to ever live. Consuming the magic orginally intended by Gerard to use to revive Zeref, Natsu awakens his true Dragon Slayer. Chapter 98 ends with Natsu’s victory over Gerard, with his appearance visibly changed; his skin becomes scaly like a dragon scales.

The series is a nice mix of action, serious storylines with humorous quirks, and epic expressions when Natsu does battle. One thing that makes this series interesting is the fighting; its not too draggy (a la the recent Bleach chapters; Ichigo took what, 10 chapters just to beat Grimmjaw?) and pretty well drawn.

A solid 4/5 from me.

Mnemosyne.

Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne no Musumetachi (literally Daughters of Mnemosyne) is what I’ve been watching for the past coupla days, and I must say its pretty good, if somewhat gruesome and mature.

Mnemosyne's title screen

Its a six-episode-long anime which tells the story of Asougi Rin, a private investigator and her assistant Mimi, whose work varies from finding lost pets to hunting rare stamps to earn a living. They also encounter a supernatural case now and again, sometimes involving something known as “the Fruit of Time”.

Rin

The Fruit of Time is a substance that renders females immortal, and transforms males into “angels”, making them lose their will and run on instinct. They are called angels because they grow wings, not for any other trait; they seem to be vicious creatures by nature, and can only live up to 2 weeks.

Rin and Mimi are immortals; I haven’t watched the whole series yet, but Rin manages to survive a bomb blast in episode 2, regenerating her body from grievous injuries.

Certain scenes, like the one where Sayara tortures Rin, is pretty sadistic; an anime definitely not for the faint-hearted, or to be watched before or after food.

Other scenes are somewhat kinky mature; Rin’s female informant in episode two demands… intercourse as payment. To all yuri fanboys/girls, yeah, its kinky; to others it may seem… a tad inappropriate.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, my yuri fanboy/girl friends.

All in all, after two episodes, the storyline seems pretty interesting, the animation is good. Watch it if you’re turned on by lesbian sex able to stomach some mature content. Then again, this isn’t really on the level of ‘zomfg that was freakin eew I’m not eating for another three days’ kinda gruesome, so as long as you’re mentally prepared, this is a pretty good… miniseries.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

From Arc System Works, the creators of Guilty Gear comes another beautifully hand-drawn 2D fighting game, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger!

Before the events of BlazBlue, humanity was on the the verge of extinction from the “Black Beast”, a creature of Darkness. Hope came in the form of six heroes who wield the power of magic. Together, the six heroes & humanity created “Armagus” a combination of Magic & Technology to defeat the Beast which would be known as The First War of Magic.

After the war, the New World Void Space Cue Administration Bureau was created to govern the new world which have discovered the use of Armagus. Under the Bureau, Humanity began reconstructing & the world was under their dictatorship. However this cause much dissent for the people due to fact Armagus was use in every issue & the widening socioeconomic gap between those who could use & cannot use Armagus. This dissent would eventually form years later into the The Ikaruga Civil War or The Second War of Magic, when the Ikaruga Union openly rebel against the Bureau. After the war, the Bureau impose a harsher rule on the world declaring anyone defying them will be killed.

On December A.D.2199, several years after the Second war, a branch of the Bureau was utterly destroy by an SS-class traitor named “Ragna the Bloodedge” also known as “the God of Death.” His quest was to destroy the Bureau. The New World Void Space Cue Administration Bureau, hoping to stop him, immediately put the largest bounty ever for anyone who could capture him.

(Copy-pasta from Wiki’s article)

The first trailer

Gameplay video, featuring most, if not all, of the cast.

There are 10 playable characters as of the writing of this post; Ragna, Jin Kisaragi, Noel Vermilion, Iron Tagar, Rachel Alucard, Taokaka, Litchi Faye Ling, Arakune, Bang Shishigami and Carl Clover. One sub-boss and a boss have also been announced, but its unclear if they’re playable.

The game looks gorgeous, much more intricate than anything in Guilty Gear, although many gameplay mechanics are similar; Heat Guage is the new Tension Guage, Overdrives are now called Distortion Drives and the like.

If one compares the characters, one can see the distinct similarities in some of the characters in BB to GG. Ragna reminds me of Sol, and Jin is strikingly similar to Ky. Iron Tagar looks like Potemkin’s brother, and Noel looks like she could be Bridget’s sister.

Sorta makes me wish I had a PS3 now.

Devil May Caramelldansen

Badass fictional characters.

What exactly makes a character “badass”? What defines badass? Is there a list that must be fulfilled in order for a character to be labelled badass? I dunno about you, but I define the term used for fictional characters as “being able to kick everyone’s butt with a flick of his(I’m not sexist, its just I don’t classify females as badass, even if they are.) finger, and looking cool and 1337 while doing it”. Let’s cut the crap, and let me list down the characters I think fit this description.

1. Dante from the Devil May Cry series

The man at the height of cool and badass, Dante kicks serious butt and looks cool while doing it. He’s also a master of different weapons, and can wield a sword as well as he can shoot with a pistol. He also uses dual pistols, one black and one white (called Ebony and Ivory), which is cool. He also has white hair. Throw in that red trenchcoat and his sarcastic, cheesy one-liners and we have a winner!

2. Sol Badguy/ Holy Orders Sol from the Guilty Gear series

A man of few words, Sol is a Gear, a biological superweapon, who kills other Gears to protect humans, and his ultimate goal is to do in the creator of the Gears, who is only known as “That Man” (Ano Otoko). He wields an oddly rectangular sword of his own creation, called the Fuuenken (Fireseal). Capable of feats of superhuman ability, he also has a fire-addiction, and uses flames in his attacks. As we all know, fire = cool, so Sol is right up there in the scale of badass-ness.

3. K Dash from the King of Fighters series

K’ is another fire-addict whose slouch, black jumpsuit, white hair and tanned complexion makes him an instant badass. His cocky attitude adds to that, with the famous intro line “Ore hitori de juubun da”, meaning “I alone [in this fight] is more than enough”. He also wears a red-plated glove, which is probably to help him control his flames (I can’t remember. Its been ages since I played KOF and I’m too lazy to Wiki him).

4. Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7

EVERYTHING about Sephiroth is badass. He’s probably the king of badass. He’s the villain that everyone remembers best from ANY Final Fantasy game. White hair (again), exposed chest covered partially by his slick black coat (like Dante in DMC3) and last but not least, Masamune, his impossibly long katana. Sure, he’s insane, but that doesn’t stop him from being cool. He makes a certain blonde spiky-haired kid with a huge sword look passe.

5. Grimmjaw Jaggerjack from Bleach

Clothed in a white vest with rolled-up sleeves (bare-chested again) and a white hakama, Grimmjaw is easily the most badass character in Bleach. His perpetual cocky grin and violent, bloodthirsty (possibly unstable) nature reeks of badass. In their first fight Grimmjaw totally pwnt Ichigo, showing him a world full of hurt and only receiving a light injury from Ichigo’s Getsuga Tenshou. True, Ichigo surpasses Grimmy later, but that don’t stop Grimmy from being WAY cooler than Ichigo. Pfft.

Did I mention he has light-blue hair and a kickass hairstyle?

Comment and choose your favourite! Or name another character who can kick all these dude’s butts.

The Time has Come.

Well… Just wanted to share this with y’all. The title of this post is the name of Nero from DMC4’s theme song. It’s pretty good, so here ya go:

The lyrics:

The time has come and so have I
I’ll laugh last cause you came to die
The damage done~the pain subsides
And I can see the fear clear when I look in your eye.

I never kneel and I’ll never rest
You can tear the heart from my chest
I’ll make you see what I do best,
I’ll succeed as you breathe your very last breath.

Now I know how the angel fell
I know the tale and I know it too well
I’ll make you wish you had a soul to sell
When I strike you down and send you straight to hell

My army comes from deep within
Beneath my soul-beneath my skin
As you’re ending, I’m about to begin
My strength, his bane, and I will never give in.

I’ll tell you now I’m the one to survive
You never break my faith or my stride
I’ll have you choke on your own demise
I make the angel scream, and the devil cry!

———-

On another note, maybe I should post pictures, whether related or not, into my posts. Seems like my blog’s been kinda…dull? So yeah. I have decided: MOAR PICTARS.

8Minutes Youth Film competition and some random news…

Before I start bitching, HAPPY NATIONAL DAY.

Okay.

Now, Austin press-ganged me into joining the 8minutes youth film competition with him along with Eugene and Zaidi. We were supposed to make a film that’s not longer than 8 minutes in 8 days, to the theme of “A resilient community in the spirit of giving”.

Needless to say, we were stumped by that title.

Anyways, a very tiring week before last. And the best thing? Last week my Digital Compositing and Matting and Effects Animation assignments were due.

Pretty shitty time for me, as you can probably imagine.

Now that’s over, I have to worry about next week’s submissions: A storyboard and a continuity report for my production assignment, a matte painting for my… matte painting module and a 2000 word essay on the Matrix for my film module.

After that, I’m home free!

Mai laptop died D:

Strictly speaking, I suspect either my video processor died, or there’s a connection problem with my motherboard.

Both of which meaning basically, all my assignment files can’t be accessed, because the damn thing starts up but there’s completely no display whatsoever.

Due to poor time management and total shagged-ness on my part (I didn’t sleep on Thursday night just to rush edit the 8minutes film shit) I not only couldn’t get up in time for the afternoon lesson, I didn’t do anything until today. Which got me scolded by my dad.

I’ll prolly bring my laptop down to the Acer Service Center on Monday. Hope if they can’t fix it on the spot I can at least get my files from it.

So I use my home desktop for the first time, and look around online for solutions to this, and surprisingly for me, I found a whole freakin’ community of people who have the exact same problem as me. WITH ACER LAPTOPS.

Some of them get this problem after only a coulpla months of use, some of them, like me, got it awhile after their 1year warranty expired.

FIshy? No shit, Sherlock.

So now I’m hoping it won’t take too long to fix, or I’ll be screwed; my assignments are due THIS FRIDAY.