Valvrave The Liberator: The Review

courtesy: Wikipedia

If you're not familiar with Gundam franchise you should know that it's a long running anime series about mass-murdering adolescents who piloted giant robots, every installment of Gundam deals with war and their effects to the people involved in them, at least until a failed effort called Gundam Age failed to deliver these things and make the show a joke. There's an HD OVA (mini series) called Gundam Unicorn (out on bi-three-monthly schedule) which still retain the premise. But unfortunately it's not enough, so former Gundam series creator and developers created a new series called Valvrave which embodies all past Gundam's niche.

Valvrave opened with familiar setting, fancy schoolboys and girls hangong out in their school, then war shoved in front of them in form of an invasion, giant robot appears and they have no choice to pilot it or their loved ones die, in this one Tokishima Haruto takes the helm of a suddenly appeared giant robot called Valvrave, unfortunately (formerly) unknown to him that it has dire consequences for him (and become more dire as the series progressed), the situation get more complicated when a genius calculative invader called L-Elf Karlstein suddenly switches side and join his forces. The story revolves around the survival attempt and consequences Haruto and his cohorts did to keep their independence.

There are a lot of going on in Valvrave as it borrows many elements from hit series, the cold and calculative L-elf can be related to Lelouch from another sunrise series: Code Geass or L of Death Note, Haruto is the narrow-minded straight good guy with little development but realistic, Haruto's schoolmates (lots of them) are supportive characters with their own reason to fight and support. There's also elements of mystic/supranatural as a balance of this story . But the one thing about Valvrave is that every elements of this series plays right, there's almost zero anticlimactic feeling after each episode, also there's always something going on with these kids and it's not here by itself or suddenly appeared, but surfaced as a result of their own doing in the past. As the series progressed more Valvrave are discovered and these kids despite knowing the consequences decided to pilot it, the thing is that it keeps the audience guessing who's the next pilot as a part of the series' appeal, and when it finally revealed it's not from a single scene of private episodic heroism but a clever chain of events from past epsiodes which it's plot twist can be shocking and unpredictable up to the borderline of controversy, it's not really subtle but it works.

Love story exist in Valvrave as a support plot, it takes form of impossible ones, nothing from these stories can be considered 'worked out' due to another elements of the plot: Lies/Truth and Indifferences, it can be considered harsh at some points, it's not a main dish of the main plot but it served as a foundation of expanding it. Indifference also plays major part in the global conflict as the little struggle of survival becomes international incident and ignite all out war between nations, and it was executed nicely without have to shove the audience an episode of just a laser battle between Gundams... i mean Valvraves

Element of Strategy plays a pivotal role of Valvrave since it's not only the Valvrave fighting out there, the transition of the naive schoolkids into battle-hardened veterans going on smoothly without making their original personality disappear, L-elf as the mysterious genius plays battle of wits on almost episode not only with the enemy but with his allies, and for each battle more of his personality begins to open up without leaving his original cold calculating self gone.

Valvrave is Gundam, I can give you that but it has it's own story, it's own design, it's own twisted imperfect sense of justice, turmoil is the Valvrave series main engine even when there's episode of peace, there's many plot in this series that has the potential of becoming a sequel even when it has been resolved, it's only a story about several schoolkids which the world altered between rejecting and accepting them, back and forth regarding of a global situation. Valvrave made everything logical, as it's slogan: "The system that unveils the world", exposing the truth can be harsh, sometimes people can't accept it, but acknowledging that people is different than you doesn't mean they held a gunpoint to your head, but when fear of differences has gripped you... you'll see guns everywhere and you'll shoot first.

The End of a Saga

Apparently I never logged in to the City of Steam for last weekend, not that I'm lazy or anything, but because I found this:

This is a seven hours movie compilation for Xenosaga Episode 1: A PS2 Japanese RPG from the year 2002, It's a huge and long story, filled with memorable and colorful characters, the company that made them called Monolith Soft (MLS) which helmed and crewed by several Squaresoft (now Square Enix) ex-employees who worked on Xenogears. It was released under Namco's (now Bandai Namco) flag and called the most ambitious Japanese RPG project at that time, It ended prematurely (from six to three episode) when Namco pulled the plug and sold MLS to Nintendo.

The thing is Xenosaga is watchable and also playable, since the cutscenes makes the most of the game, I think it's probably the best game ever created on  PS2, although many people will dispute me, I partially blamed the shifting interest from Turn Based RPGs to a more action games on those years, and the 'company profit vs idealistic projects' attitude

I sincerely hope MLS will continue the story of Xenosaga someday, it's huge, and when it continues it'll be even bigger than Bandai's .hack series (wonder why it's still continue, and spawned several movie and animes), the company already have a new project called Xenoblade on Wii platform, it gained a solid 9.0 on Gamespot, and yeah... it made me want to buy Wii

Gundam Age Third Look: I want to cry now, can I?

Gundam Age act III, okay for all of you who doesn't realize it until now: This anime has become creepier and incompatible with my brain parts, and also an insult to the gundam franchise, this is a reminder for all of you movie makers: You CAN'T take Band of Brothers and tone down the level of violence so it'll be suitable for kids, Gundam is a story about war, about kids killing other kids or adults, you CAN'T TONE DOWN that!! and if the franchise really wants to sell more toys to kids please let me remind you that kids in Japan is a non existant entity. And the amount of teenage nerds that bought Gundam toy models is even bigger than the population in my city anyway

Because if there are kids in Japan, they'll start building weapons of mass destruction

Ok, so in the end of Act two the dark lord Flit Asuno and his force-less apprentice son Asemu set up a trap to lure the Earth spies for the Vagan, which apparently the president of Earth itself, so Darth Asuno captured him, executed him and the rest of his senate accomplice and start the dark reign of Earth under the military rules and strict martial law, turning the Earth itself into a training grounds for the new Sith generation.

Yeah...

I lied, apparently the citizen of earth are okay with those execution and live happily ever after, which is weird because in my head the battle between the V and the Earthers are becoming more and more 1980s cold war-like, except both parties endlessly launched giant robots to space and blow up planets and space stations, it's extremy unfathomable that Sith Emperor Asuno brainwashed the entire Earth citizen to hate Vagans while on the other side the prophetic leader of Vagans brainwashed the entire Martians to think Earth is their rights to take, it's like watching the entire international conflict on World War 1 fused itself into a giant ball of polarized opinion

I don't have any good picture to describe this but this one come close

So, let's continue, after Asemu and the most screen time girl have coitus (legally of course, they're married anyway) they have a son called Kio, apparently dark lord Asuno isn't finished on his quest to eradicate all communists.... i mean Vagans so he brought his grandson a combat simulation which apparently a Gundam cockpit simulator, so yeah little cute Kio has been trained to kill Vagans since he was five.

His parents will be so proud

After that the story goes on, Kio got a transformer big Gundam called Age 3 and start blasting away Vagans with ease, and that's that.

yes, that's all, the end, now let me cry.

Gundam AGE: Second Look (with half closed eyes)

--WARNING--
This post contains spoiler, in fact the whole thing in this post is a spoiler about Gundam Age, so you've been warned, go ahead at your own risk or you might want to visit this awesome website :D

Just a little reminder

So
...
Gundam Age
...
Arc Two

Well, the UE has new name, they called Vegans (or Vagans since we already knew vegetarians everywhere won't be appreciated their way of life slapped on aliens) but let's just call them V, like those aliens from the discontinued serial. Long story short apparently these V guy were once part of the Mars establishment project (which is failed) and abandoned by earth so in their rage they apparently developed superhuman abilities and capable of building mean killing machines, sent them into good guys colonies and destroying them, so yeah, they're probably communists

they also developed a bad sense of fashion

On the last episode of arc one we knew these V guy want to take over the Earth for some reason (there must be a reason right?) and apparently one of them is gone ballistic and kidnapped the "least screen time girl" Yurin (which Flit is head over heel for her), put her on a mobile suit and force her to attack the good guys, the battle ended with predictable scene

pretty close to this, but with blood, 

lots of blood....

After that Flit, which apparently embraced the dark side (and woke his own superhuman abilities, making him a Sith Lord) began his crusade to eradicate all Vagan from the universe, unfortunately we didn't got to see Flit on his Hallelujah type rampage because apparently the story 30 years later is more interesting, Flit now has a son with the most screen time girl (forgot her name, Flit probably too, but they also said the cure of lost love is bedding the nearest available girl, or something) and since he's also a genius and capable of Gundam-ing he become the head honcho of human's military, and apparently he once again failed to mass produced Gundams because I really have no idea if he's busy or so smart that he could make a bunch of V exploded on their own, but don't worry there are plenty of pretty-colored Genoace now, and who dares question a Sith Lord?

Above: Picture of 40 year old Flit Asuno,
taken a second before the cameraman got force choked

Story of Asemu so far: A mobile suit maniac, saved a girl (yes he'll have kids with her in a few years), and best friend of a V spy Zeheart Gallette, and a new Gundam Pilot, it's nepotism all over again, damn. Well after Zeheart reveal his own agenda they ended up fighting each other, apparently Zeheart have some sort of excess of superhuman abilities (dubbed: emo) so he's forced to wear a glasses just to look cool and Bandai can sell more of them. Asemu on the other hand have zero superhuman thingie because apparently her girlfriend hasn't been killed yet

...or he's probably Luke Skywalker

Well, watching Gundam sort of removed my writer's block, somehow... 

My prediction: The last Battle will be a staring contest

Singing and Dancing Throughout Time

For me, music is a delicate thing, if something fits in my ear it'll stay in my brain for days, the sole reason I only listened to J-music while keep an open eye of good pieces from the Western and others, apparently it's been months and I haven't heard any single new tune that made me hum, so in desperate in a new (or perhaps old) sounds I turn to youtube (instead of playing WOW), apparently I discovered a few things:

No, not this one, I already know Darth Vader is a member of NKOTB

I started with my old relationship, when I was young the TV constantly streamed with animes so needless to say I grow with it, that's why at my early age I always think that the opening of Saint Seiya is the best song in the world.

"Yep"

and 20 something years later....

Apparently rock star don't live fast & die young,

they haunt you for the rest of your life

The singer still exists and the anime/manga are being remade or sequeled, or spin-off-ed, Japanese are die hard =))

Macross

This used to be a separate writing, but I included this because there's a relation, and because they're animes that breathed good songs and story. Started at 1982 the original series tells a story about a giant spaceship colony called Macross which hurled into uncharted space by some unknown stuff and tried desperately to get back home, inside this spaceship the people started again to live their daily life, it's a slice-of-life soap opera sprinkled with war action and giant robots, running close to 100 50 episode, and also intertwined with musical numbers sang by Linn Minmay

There is a God

Minmay (voiced by actress Mari Ijima) quickly gained momentum that started the franchise, Macross get a retelling OVA (which contains new song and the original ones) and Ijima herself become instant celebrity, 

Probably one of the best song I ever heard, and no I'm not joking

Apparently the franchise are plummeted down when the true sequel Macross 7 experimented with the sound of Slow/Glam Rock and set the fictious Fire Bomber Band as the next star, the story is completely scrapped although it was once set into the wandering space cowboy plus mariachi theme , changing the true spacefighter robots into giant speaker carrier that shoots lights and sound instead rockets and lasers, the pilots themself equipped with mock musical instruments used to 'shoot', as cheesy as it can be there is one memorable song

Please don't try this concept again, MBS

The franchise get back to it's feet when the next sequel Macross Frontier get it right, included two songstress, Sheryl Nome (voiced by singer May'n) and newcomer artist Ranka Lee (voiced by set-to-be-idol Megumi Nakajima), the unique thing is May'n song are R&B stuffs while Nakajima sang Easy Listening ones, the songs are decent, the duets are good, the story is not groundbreaking but still enjoyable, like all Macross Franchise Frontier also got a retelling OAV which in my opinion contains more action, better storyline, and smoother animation, especially when the show scene of the singers, it's also the first Macross that used CGI to animate combat scenes, the opening song also sang by already famous anime singer Maaya Sakamoto

Catchy, catchy tunes (otaku mode on)

Folder

I stumbled across Folder when rummaging on anime songs and have nostalgic reunion with Dream, apparently my clicking ability brought me into the girl/boyband territory from the late 90s era, one of them is Folder, although they never sang a song that became an anime song, but I'll get back to it later, here they are on 1999

Yep, they're S Club 7 clone, but this song damn catches my ears (yes, it was a song by two brats but hey, I'm at the same age as them at that time, okay maybe a few years older) also this song reminds me of the R&B fusion genre from the late 90s Japan, most of them are dorama songs though, sang by famous Japanese  singer like Ken Hirai

Okay, let's get back to Folder, here they are one year later, 2000

Whoa!

So, the boys left the group because of their changing voices (puberty sucks) and the girls has.... well...grown :P this is the second opening of anime One Piece, a flagship anime/manga title from Jump and Toei, Folder become Folder 5, apparently they dance better now, and now I know where Suzumiya Haruhi's dance is from

I have two additional songs for my mp3 player now, yay, happy happy me, after some browsing I also found some dance group AAA's songs are decent enough to enter my collection, anyway Folder 5 was disbanded like 6 years ago and their members pursued solo career, one of them even starred on some famous movie like Death Note, but their solo singles are nothing good enough to enter my ears

Reverse S Club 7 (in all aspects, including quality of songs)

AKB48

Well now, I was once promised myself never venture into deep otaku territory but I'm already knee deep within girl/boyband swamp, might as well checked out the latest ones, so I hold onto my nose and dive. This one is a major stuff, AKB48 (formed 2006, but I just found out about them last year, silly me) was short from Akihabara 48, sporting tagline: "Idols you can meet" (yes, otaku things, watch your step), they performed dance and sing act in a theater every day on Akihabara region, their total members exceeded the number 48, almost close like 157 teenage girl!! But they're the top selling Japanese artist last year on their region, here's one of their hit single:

Apparently I now hummed it.... damn you Akihabara

AKB48 wasn't the first, there are already similar group called Morning Musume (formed 1998) which held the record for the japan's highest record seller on girl group, they swapped members every year (a method which also embraced by AKB48), I never followed them since at that time rock band such as L'arc en Ciel, Luna sea, and Glay grew in me, and at that teen angst moments, who needs a bunch of dancing pre-teen girl? >:)), Morning Musume and AKB48 also toured and performed on Anime Expo held on US or Europe

Anywaaaaaaay, who wants to see another one from my regional area? HERE THEY ARE!!!

THEY'RE INVADING!!

Apparently AKB48 chooses Jakarta as their sister girlband city, dubbed JKT48, the reason of it... is... I don't know, people in here knows nothing about good songs and the culture is different, I might put their song in my mp3 player but I'm not glorifying them or anything like that, they sang decent song and probably practiced that choreography like hell, but it become a question, who're they targeting here? I probably knew the answer, but apparently it's so out of this world (or this country) that it's probably not true

Well, come what may, at least I have some new/old songs, time to research some more catchy tunes tonight (yep, it's WOW maintenance night)

Hello, Instrument

UPDATE: MAX

Okay, this probably the most exciting discovery: MAX is a Japanese four member vocal group, they excel in voice's quality and sang upbeat tempo song, eurobeat, and some speed techno things, they're also has different image from other Idol Group, more mature theme. Apparently they're once the rival of Morning Musume in term of selling singles.

Max's song ranged from their initial R&B to upbeat ballad, most of them are not my kind but this one is awesome

The song called Issho Ni, I don't know why it can be so appealing in my ear, some secret organization could brainwash me or something, but it's good stuff, it's so different from other MAX's song (you can browse the rest of them on Youtube) and the music brings a sense of smoothness, I personally liked that brief acoustic guitar at the end.

Max has one more ballad song, this one is not as impacting as Issho Ni, it's called Spring Rain, but it's still good enough to enter my collection, it has the same upbeat element from the thing that made Issho Ni good but the execution of vocals are not quite good as the other, oh yeah, the PV is good to watch too

With MAX's song I concluded my search for skipped tunes and j-music from groups between early 90s and now, it's been a wondrous and colorful journey

(Now, back to LFR, dammit Gurthalak Y U NO DROP!!!)

Gundam Age First Look

Kids and Gundams? What can go wrong?

For real? Everything....

Enter Flit Asuno, one day some Unknown Enemy (UE) razed his home colony and killed his mother, at her last breath she gave Flint something: A plan to build war machine called Gundam, after that Flit is quickly taken under the wing of the Human Defense Forces and when he discovered genius they told him to build Gundams deemed capable to eradicate the aliens, after seven years Flit finally got his chance of revenge, by pwning every aliens and lead an army of Gundam to their homeworld thus wiped it off the galactic chart....

Above: Savior of mankind.... in different series

No, it's not the story of the newest Gundam show, but I think it's more interesting than the original which here's the breakdown of it:

Flit escaped the UE, moved on to new colony and grew up normally, yes he's a genius and built Gundam with the help of a funny-bearded professor, ... for.... ummm... pah, who cares, oh hey didn't I told you that the humans didn't manage to keep these UE in check? because apparently they're not smart enough to built Gundams for the last SEVEN YEARS and got pwned over and over again by the UE. Okay, now we looked at Flit again and there's a flashback of him with funny-moustached butler who explained that his family only have one job: to be Gundam riding heroes, and by listening to the latest attack location of the UE he drew a (genius) conclusion that his colony will be next, of course his teacher treat him like a boy who cried wolf, and when the wolf suddenly attacks the adults is nowhere to be seen except just to prevent Flit to activate Gundam by scolding him and said "It's too dangerous"

I built the Gundam and this series' goddamn hero, screw all of you

I've only watched five Gundam series (Wings, Turn A, Seed, Destiny, and OO), never bought their merchandise so I don't deserved the Gundam otaku title, but every Gundam's first episode is always gripped the theme: War, let me give you some explaining

Gundam Wings: "We hate you Earthling, DIE! For the Colonies!!!"
Gundam Seed: "Why are you siding with them? you belong to us!!"
Gundam S Destiny: "I'm Gundam, war machine!"
Gundam OO: "We're above you and our goal is world peace, so now if you started a war we'll kill all of you"
Gundam Turn A:  "I haz nekkid buttz and my employers are sorta killing my new friends"

Then we came to this:

Gundam Age: YOU'RE A F***IN HERO FLIT!!! FIGHT!!! FIGHT!!! FIGHT!!!

Gundam Age was... I don't know, is....wrong, the original theme of Gundam is gone, the attacking UE scene (which KILLED a lot of humans) seemed awkward, the death of the unknown first prototype rider wasn't even on the screen, and clashing of twisted subjective justice from characters is nowhere to be seen, there's only one side: Human, and the other is as the name suggest: Unknown, but even the unknown origin of the UE didn't feel strong enough to give this first episode an appeal and the battle has been reduced to something no more than Human vs Genocidal Alien, there's only one hero and it's Flit Asuno, the maker and rider of the awesomest robot in the universe: Gundam, Hell Yeah!!!

The A stands for Awesome, 

now go watch 'Easy A' to find out what awesome really means

Hell no, this is not Mazinger or Voltes V, this is Gundam FFS!!!! Can't you get enough alien and kiddies with Zegapain and the latest Gundam OO yet???!!! -- I actually said it

But I'm always tried to keep an open mind, there are probably some cool plot twists in the future episodes like all Sunrise series, it'll probably cooler that if Flit somehow revealed never escaped the UE and instead he's planted to walk among humans to accelerate UE's galactic domination plan by destroying humans from the inside.... 

Hopefully....

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Aaaand, vacation is over

A day before, me and a friend talked about how human succesfully made life becomes more complex by inventing too much distraction, idle talk but since I always based my idea on how you can greet a stranger on a road without getting a suspicious stare and a "whaddaya want" answer.... I must agree with him :))

On a completely unrelated note Star Wars The Old Republic finally get a release date, it's 20 December for US and 22nd for Europe, the news keep me alive all night last night (aside from that new Nescafe Menu), but seriously if you take a closer look release date means US$ 60 for new game (YAY) and the fact that they released it before Christmas that people can use it as a present (rather than gift cards from Best Buy) is a good business move. Now the next step that Lucasarts should make is inventing a real Lightsaber

 Or a flying skateboard

But for me release date means one thing: as a freebie lover I expected... TRIAL version, which I can do stress test with my old gaming gear with overclocked settings, I guess too much distraction made me unable to buy a new gear :D

So, if you'll excuse me I'm gonna continue watching Higurashi, bloody sick anime series (in both ways) I'll review it when my brain stopped racking (hopefully it's still up there after I watched the final season)