The Blog of Xbolt

Now with twice as many exclamation points!!

K-ON!! is, quite obviously, the sequel to K-ON!. I knew by the end of the first season that there would be a sequel. It just didn’t feel complete yet. Naturally, I was right.

The first season was about the girls’ first two years of high school, and the second is about their third and final year. So, what happened in their third year? Well… More of the same, really. Cute girls doing cute things and playing music. (Although, the ratio of music to other stuff is less in the second season. Which disappointed me.)

My favorite episode was the concert episode, where they actually, you know, played music. Though, the summer trip one was really good, too…

So basically, if you liked the first one, go ahead and watch the second one. Because you’ll probably like it too. If you didn’t like the first one… I can’t really help you there.

And… They’re making a K-ON! movie I guess? It had better be about them going to the Budokan. I’ve been waiting for that since the beginning of the first season. If they don’t use this to actually conclude the original storyline with a flair, and instead we get an hour and a half of tea and cakes, then I’ll be very unhappy.

Gohan wa Okazu

This is my favorite of the new songs. It’s about food.

Because Princess Inada Is Scolding Me – Piano

We’re in autumn now. Which means that it’s now time for the Aki sisters to shine.

This song makes me happy.

And hungry for baked sweet potatoes.

Time Machine

This song was a collab between two producers. 164, and 40mP. This epic collab produced an epic song. Miku sounds wicked good here, and the opening is completely awesome.

The weird Heart Sutra thing seems to be clearing out. Only two were left in the top 30. As if to celebrate, quite a number of great songs were released this week. I must have added ten new ones to my collection. So a lot of thought went into this week’s pick.

Also: welcome back, Mont Blanc. ONE MILLION VIEWS GET!!

I caved. I wasn’t originally going to watch the new remake of NGE, since the original wasn’t exactly my thing. But I ended up watching it anyway… Oh well.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone is the first in a series of four films that retell the story told in NGE. This first film is pretty much an exact copy of the story from the first six episodes, but with a major graphical upgrade. And it is mighty pretty, at that. The scene with Ramiel is now an awesomely epic sight to behold.

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, the second film in the tetralogy, is where the new story diverges from the old.

It vaguely follows the story from episodes 8 to 19, but only vaguely. I recognized some of the scenes from the old series, but quite a few events have been changed. We have a new character, different Angels, and that ending… Asuka is still here, though. That’s good. Her last name was changed though, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

It would be an untruth for me to say that I didn’t like these two movies. I really hope that the ending to this new series won’t be a letdown. We’ll have to wait and see.

NGE/Rebuild comparison : 3rd Angel

In this clip from 1.0, you can see how close the old and new are.

Recettear – An Item Shop’s Tale – Opening

The tale of Recettear is a very good one. It was first published in Japan in 2007, and three years later, a small team of people decided to translate and release it to the English-speaking world. Back in July, the demo was released. And people played it, and loved it. (I was one of them.) Word spread through the Internet via word-of-mouth. The creators didn’t spend anything on advertising, yet the game became famous.

Now we come to September. The full game was released on the 10th. Was it worth the hype? My answer is an emphatic YES. Recettear is some of the best 20 bucks I’ve ever spent. I say that with full honesty. And apparently, the rest of the Internet thought so as well. In its first week, it was one of the top 10 best-selling games on Steam.

Oh, I haven’t said why it’s so great? Well it’s like this. You know how in RPGs, you crawl through dungeons, get tons of loot, and then sell it at the nearest market? Well in Recettear, you play one of those item shopkeepers. But you can hire adventurers to go through dungeons and pick up stuff for you to sell in your shop. So there’s two parts to the game: sitting behind the counter in the shop and selling stuff to people, and crawling through dungeons hacking away at monsters while taking their stuff. And both sections of the game are very fun to play.

The game also has a great sense of humor. I’ve cracked up at the dialogue more than a few times. That only adds to the game’s already high charm. Having someone come into the shop and say “This has been in the family for years, but I need some money. Could you buy it from me?” while a picture of an apple appears, that will never, EVER, get old.

If I had to come up with a single word to describe Recettear, it would be “Unique”. I haven’t seen anything like this RPG/shopkeeping hybrid before. And believe me, the games industry really needs some more of that originality these days…

I’ve put over 40 hours into the game already, and I’m still not bored, nor have I seen all there is to see. So no sir, I’m not missing that $20 in the slightest.

Promise and Lie

I especially like the intro/build on this one.

CMB landed just outside the ranking at #31. Instead we have… we have… Ok, seriously. What the heck is up with ranks 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 15, and 17? If there’s a joke here, it’s not very funny. So stop it. You are a lunatic. Go away.

I went to see Inception last month. And I thought it was a very nice piece of work. The premise alone was very interesting.

A few weeks later, I watched Paranoia Agent. And that was cool. Then, I looked at what else the director had done. Paprika came up, and after reading the premise, I said: “Well, that sounds familiar. I should watch this.” So I did.

Like Inception, the premise is that technology exists that allows people to share dreams. In Paprika, the technology is used in psychiatry to help better understand and treat patients.

One day, one of the prototype “DC Mini” devices ends up missing. And to their horror, the development team sees that it is being used to manipulate others’ subconscious–while they are awake. And without the device attached.

I really liked this movie. In fact, I may go on to say that this was a great movie. The dream sequences were really well done. Just like in real dreams, rather than rigid sets, they flow from location to location based on emotion, with logic thrown to the wind. And yet, it makes perfect sense. The story never lost me, and I did like the changing dreamscapes here better than the more rigid ones in Inception.

And I swear, Dr. Tokita, the genius who invented the DC Mini, looks just like Gabe Newell. Seriously.

Paprika’s Inception

Both are very good films, and have my recommendation. (But Paprika was better.)

And one final note: a week before my review of Paranoia Agent went up, the news broke that Satoshi Kon, the director, had died of cancer. I was shocked, (and slightly creeped out,) as this was just a few days after I watched it. And now, after watching Paprika, I can really understand why people referred to him as one of the most inventive directors of our time.

Rest in peace, Kon-sama.

White Forest base hunter battle, crowbar only

We would just wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands. I used to kill ten, twenty a day!

Deep-Sea Girl

I was very tempted to put up ne★gi instead of Deep-Sea Girl. Miku rocking out on acoustic is just epic. XD

In other news, my beloved Coward Mont Blanc was pushed out of the top 30 this week, after spending the last twenty on the charts.

All may not be lost though, for as you recall, this was Miku’s birthday week. Consequently, this was an extremely high-scoring week. 16th place had over 100,000 points. Indeed, Mont Blanc gained points over last week. So Mont Blanc may return after things calm down a bit.

If not, then it will still go down in the books as a milestone in the history of songs.

This week was also a milestone for me, personally. I now have more than 500 Vocaloid songs in my mega-playlist, totaling 36.2 hours of music, and 3.14 gigabytes of space.

Touhou Project Side Story is a Touhou anime that was released in 2007, predating A Summer Day’s Dream by a year.

Unlike A Summer Day’s Dream, which was exceptionally good for a doujin product, TPSS should have had the subtitle “How Not To Make An Anime”.

Bad character designs, worse animation, laughable special effects, a story that seems to be little more than terrible fanfiction. Ouch.

The “story” is about Lunarian culture, and hence focuses on the crew from Imperishable Night, with some original characters. (This was made before Silent Sinner in Blue, which contradicts just about everything here.) And… My goodness, is that a MAN?! Sacrilege!!

As for effects, the whole movie looks rather blurry. It’s almost like they turned the bloom up way too high. And I’m like: “No! Stop it! Games already use that effect way too much!”

The voice acting wasn’t as bad as the rest, though. (Except for Reimu and Marisa, who sound horrible. Fortunately, they’re only on for five minutes.)

All in all, I give Touhou Project Side Story a ⑨ out of 100. It is Cirno Day, after all.

Touhou Project Side Story Part 1/5

Reisen! Reisen! Tasukete Reisen! *is shot*