Duality

…I should really think of a formal title for these kinds of posts. ;) After my last “lots of topics in one post” post, I felt rather good about it. So I think I might make it a regular thing. Lemmie know what your thoughts on the matter are by leaving me some comments. But for now, news!

Holy crap that was funny
Last night I had the privilege to see Dave Chappelle live and it was one of the funniest shows I’ve ever been to. Although, now that I think about it, I’ve only been to about 3 comedy shows. Once was Eddie Izard (Freaking Hilarious!), and the other was Lewis Black (Angry and hilarious!). There’s something about seeing a comedian live that makes it so much funnier than seeing them on TV. So if you ever get a chance to see someone live, take it!

Our Hero Has Returned!
For the past…wow, almost a whole month, I haven’t played City of Heroes because of an attempt at concentrating on school. But now that summer school is over and I’ve still got till Thursday before the fall quarter starts up, I’ve started playing CoH again. Just yesterday I played for almost 7 hours straight! Oh, and I created a new Hero as well. Her name is Icicle and she’s an archer with ice powers. It’s pretty fun to freeze someone in there tracks and then pick them off from a distance. But Blind Vengeance is still my main man and I had some awesome missions yesterday. This reminds me, I wanted to make some posts about my CoH characters…I’ll have to remember to do that later. ;)

Here we go again!
There’s something that I’ve been wanting to mention for some time now but I never seemed to get around to it. I bought a Nintendo DS. *pause for gasps* Yes, yes…it was only a little while ago when I sold my DS and bought my PSP. Well, now I have both. “Why”, you might ask? Two words: Instant Puppies!! Yes, Nintendogs was the reason I spent 130 bucks again. Although I do have a blue DS now and that’s an improvement. Either way, I’ve got Nintendogs and I also bought Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Which reminds me, maybe I’m the last one to see this, but it seems that all the subtitles on DS games can be abbreviated as DS. Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Lunar: Dragon Song, Dig Dug: Digging Strike, etc. The only one I can think of that’s breaking the mold is Animal Crossing: Wild World. Anyway, hopefully Nintendo can keep me as a customer this time, but with inventive games like Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright coming out soon, not to mention hard hitters like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, I don’t think Nintendo will have much to worry about.

Blooodddd…
Every now and then I run into an anime that both creeps me out and captivates me at the same time. Luckily I recently found one. Trinity Blood is currently airing in Japan, but fansubs are being made each week. It takes place hundreds of years after humans cause Armageddon. The remaining humans have mostly come together religiously and the church hunts down a new evil that has appeared. Vampires! However, the coolest thing about the show is that the main character works for the church, but is a Vampire himself. But not just any vampire. He’s a Vampire that feeds off the blood of other Vampires! Now I’m sure there’s some one out there who’s gonna be all “wait that was done is so-and-so’s book!” or whatever. And there is probably actual terms for it all, but who cares. It’s a cool anime with lots of blood and violence. Once I finish watching them all, I’ll write a full review.

And Justice for all!
Just a quick note, but the new Justice League Unlimited season…AWESOME! They created a new Legion of Doom!! And just as the first episode of season 1 had me pausing every two seconds to name each hero they brought in, this episode had me naming all the villains. My only hope is that they bring back The Joker and—with any luck—his main squeeze (and mine) Harley Quinn! Joker hasn’t been seen since season 2 of Justice League! *sigh* A guy can dream, can’t he?

Well that’s about all I can think of right now. Next time I’ve got things to talk about, you’ll be the first to hear about. ;)

This last weekend, my roommate Porfirio (you may know him as prez2401) got to go down to the annual Anime Expo in Anaheim. While there, he took a ton of pictures with his camera-phone and asked if I would post some of them and I was happy to oblige. I wish I could put them all up, considering this is only a third of all the pictures he took, but here are some of the cool things that he saw (and a lot of cosplay).

Individual Cosplaying:
Porfirio with Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist
Bender from Futurama
M. Bison from the Street Fighter series
Boba Fett from Star Wars
Cloud from Final Fantasy VII
Some random girl that Porf thought was hot
Koenma from Yu-Yu Hakusho
Link from The Legend of Zelda series
The Merchant from Resident Evil 4
Jin from Samurai Champloo
Mugen from Samurai Champloo
Solid Snake with a snake…and a beer belly from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Vivi from Final Fantasy IX

Group Cosplaying:
Battle Royal
Bleach
Chrno Crusade
Dante vs. Solid Snake, Resident Evil, and a Ninja
.hack
Inuyasha
Rurouni Kenshin
Kingdom Hearts
Naruto
Resident Evil
Tetris Blocks!
Trigun
Irvine and Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII
An awesome lightsaber battle

Voice Actors:
Ryô Horikawa – Japanese voice actor who’s done Vegeta from DragonBall Z, and has also worked on several Japanese video games playing such characters as Capt. Falcon from Super Smash Brothers Melee.
Vic Mignogna – Voice of Broly from DragonBall Z and Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, as well as many other animes including Neon Genesis Evangelion and DNAngel.
Mike McFarland – Voice of Master Roshi, Yajirobe, and others from DragonBall Z. Also does the voice for Jean Havoc on Full Metal Alchemist.

Random Shots:
Awesome Yoda Origami
The entrance to the convention center (5:00 in the morning!)
The Fantastic Four Logo

Translated, the title of this show is Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (MSAA), and it is hands down one of the funniest animes I have ever seen.

Gai-who?
For the anime newbies out there, Gainax may not be a company you know of by name, but you’ve probably seen, or at least hear of, one of their anime series. Furi Kuri (FLCL), Mahou Tsukai Tai (Magic Users Club), and—most famously—Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE) are all anime series that have come out of the Gainax’s studios. For anyone who has seen NGE, you know what they can do to fuck with your mind. And to anyone who’s seen FLCL, you also know what they can do to fuck with your mind. Gainax is probably most famous for making the most mind-fucking anime’s ever.

So, what’s the difference?
Both FLCL and NGE are excellent examples of the work Gainax is capable of. However, they both screw with your head in very different ways: NGE with it’s intense psychological overtones and FLCL with it’s “where the FUCK did that come from?” Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is in the same category as FLCL (and RE: Cutie Honey, if anyone’s seen that Gainax production as well).

…wtf?
I, like many other people, find incredible humor in the “wtf” side of comedy. The “that was absolutely the last thing I could have imagined happening” category. For people like me, MSAA is a godsend. Not just for it’s random sense of humor, but for its amazing sense of style throughout it all. When MSAA changes tones, it doesn’t just change the story, it changes the setting, the character, and even the animation style. You can really tell that the creators knew exactly what they wanted and poured their hearts into it.

It all starts with a boy and a girl…
And in this case, yes, yes it does. The story starts with young boy and girl around the age of 10. They’re childhood friends and have grown up together. They live in the shopping arcade known as Abenobashi with each of their parents owning different shops. The whole town is protected by containing perfect Chi and maintaining four statues, one in each point of the town (North, South, East and West). But when one of them is broken, strange things start happening and it seems to center around our two young heroes.

Where to go from here
With their town falling down around them, literally, they decided to follow a rainbow bridge which leads them to a castle they swear must be in France. However, it turns out that things start to look very similar until they realize that they are in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade—only this happens to be the Sword and Sorcery Shopping Arcade. Here, they encounter random enemies they must fight (and end up always losing to) until they reach the final boss and destroy it by making it’s breast’s explode. Yeah…did I mention that there’s a mole with sunglasses who pops up to tell different things about the enemies like HP, name, etc?

It can’t get weirder than that
Oh, but it can. It can, and it will. The wonderful thing about MSAA is the hundreds of pop culture references they have thrown in. MSAA knows it’s only an anime and because of that, completely doesn’t take itself seriously. Here is a short list of the various Shopping Arcade’s they encounter and a few of the spoofs that you might find (don’t worry, these aren’t really plot spoilers because it’s hard to determine exactly what the plot even is):

The Great Milky Way Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Hong Kong Combat Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Rocky, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Fighting Video Games, Dragonball Z

The Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: The Flintstones, Tarzan

The Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Film Noir, Gangster Movies, ‘Chibi’ Anime

The Exciting Campus Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Hentai, All Girls High School

The Fairy Tale Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Disneyland, Cinderella

The Battlefield Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: Rambo, The Bombing of Pearl Harbor (they bombed Pearl Barbor….Hilarious!)

The Hollywood Shopping Arcade

Spoofs: The Terminator, Knight Rider, Robocop, Escape From New York, Twister, Jaws, North By Northwest, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, Friday The 13th, The Truman Show, Titanic, Back To The Future, and many many more.

So, have I piqued your interest yet? If so, then go out and get this anime right now. Go to Fry’s, go to Best Buy, heck, you can even get it at Netflix. Just go get it now. There are only 13 episodes and if you can’t dedicate a little over 5 hours of your life to something as entertaining as this, then you’ve got a problem.

Final Thoughts
This is one of the most original, well-made, and downright hilarious anime’s I have ever seen. I guarantee there is NO way that you can’t get a laugh out of this. However, one word of warning. Do NOT listen to the American dubbed version for ANY reason. It is absolutely god-awful and does this show no justice at all. Simply watch the original Japanese with subtitles and you’ll do fine. I can not recommend Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi highly enough. Trust me, you’ll love it.

Last night Nickelodeon ran the hour long premier of Avatar: The Last Airbender and I thought I’d write a small preview for you guys. I first saw a commercial for this show and thought, wow, an anime on Nickelodeon? How weird is that going to be. I didn’t really have high expectations, but the preview looked interesting, so I figured what the heck, I’ll Tivo it. After watching it, however, I am hooked! Unlike most anime that we see on TV, Avatar was made by Nickelodeon Studies themselves and not imported from Japan. The voice acting is pretty good and the animation is fantastic.

The story is about a world at war. There are four different factions: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, with the Fire nation waging a war against all the other tribes for the past 100 years. Each clan has people who can manipulate their particular element, called Benders. Legend tells of the Avatar, a warrior who can master all four elements. The show starts off with a young Waterbender and her brother discovering a child trapped in the ice. After freeing him, they learn that he is an Airbender, and the story takes off from there. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who wants to actually see it.

With a perfect mix of action, humor, and childish delight, Avatar: The Last Airbender is shaping up to be an excellent series. You can catch the hour long premier again Wednesday at 6:00PM or Friday at 7:00PM, right before its weekly time-slot, every Friday at 8:00PM on Nickelodeon.