Best of WVR #139
The story of my life. T_T
World’s End Dancehall continues to dominate the Internets. It was #1 again this week. I call hax.
The ramblings of a bearded crazy person
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
If you could travel through time, what would you do?
That is the question facing Makoto Kanno, a high school girl who is granted the ability to travel through time. Of course she doesn’t use it for malicious purposes, just little things like avoiding embarrassing situations, hanging out with friends longer, and things of that sort. What’s the harm in that, right?
I believe that people who want to travel through time, don’t understand a fundamental issue with the ability. If they did, they wouldn’t want to travel through time. In the complex web of interconnected events that form the timestream, if you change one event, it will have an effect on other events. The Butterfly Effect, no? The consequences for even the smallest of changes can be large, and they can be disastrous. And this film presents that fact very well.
I have no qualms about saying that this film is, quite simply, excellent. Sci-fi isn’t all about robots and aliens in space, you know? The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a great example of the less-outrageous form of sci-fi.
Girl Who Leapt Through Time -full trailer
Trailers ahoy.
Push it to the Limit
Half-Life 2 – Push It To The limit
Beware of story spoilers if you haven’t played the game yet.
I played HL2 again after the engine update last week. Shinier pixels, woot! Though I do hope they fix all the new bugs they added in the update. Some are actually game-breaking. But I eventually got around them.
Best of WVR #138
A Miku/Luka duet done right. Very nice.
In related news, the Vocalogenesis album, which this song appeared on, made it to the top of the weekly Oricon music charts. That’s quite an achievement, and I hope more Vocaloid albums follow suit.
In other news, ranks 30-11 were virtually devoid of new songs. On the other hand, 9 out of the top 10 were new. Which was interesting.
In other other news, wowakaP’s latest song, World’s End Dancehall, got a record-breaking 1.5 million points in this week’s ranking. The previous record holder was RIP=RELEASE, which only garnered 800k. WEDH has nearly twice that. Seriously, what? Also interesting, is the fact that it has three times as many comments as MyLists. Usually, it’s the opposite. I wonder what they’re all talking about?
Full Metal Panic!
Full Metal Panic! follows Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, a military specialist working for Mithril, a secret anti-terrorist organization. He is tasked with guarding Kaname Chidori, an ordinary high school girl who may not actually be totally ordinary. Oh, and it has big mech fights.
I like FMP! for the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It has a story, sure, but there are quite a few laughs throughout, mostly because of Sousuke.
In order to guard Kaname, the Sergeant has to adapt to regular high school life. To say he fails would be an understatement. He overreacts to absolutely everything, and sees a terrorist threat around every corner. Kaname is unamused.
Just about every character on the show, I liked. (Well, except for the main villain.) They’re all very different, and play off each other well. The socially inept Sousuke, the tsundere Kaname, the charmingly clumsy Tessa, the cool military guy Kalinin, the “ladies man” Kurz, the ruthless insulter Melissa, etc.
Sousuke? SOUSUKE! SOUSUKEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Free Yourself
Half-Life 2 on OS X – Free Yourself
On May 26th,
Valve Software will introduce
Half-Life 2 for Mac.
And you’ll see why 2010
won’t be like “1984”.
Best of WVR #137
Kind of an “eh” week, actually.
Well, in regard to new songs anyway. There were a few old songs that I like on there, (CMB went up to #5!) but they are ineligible for my column.
Ghost in the Shell
Finally. One more semester of college is over, and summer is here. Which means I now have time to devote to watching anime, and then writing about it.
To kick off the Summer 2010 season of Xbolt’s Anime Reviews, I selected Ghost in the Shell.
GitS came out in 1995, and was a defining film in the cyberpunk genre. It was also one of the earliest anime films to cross the Pacific to non-anime fans. GitS had a large influence on a number of Western filmmakers, notably the Wachowski brothers, who created The Matrix. I had already seen The Matrix, and I could definitely draw connections between the two.
In 2029, cyborgs are abundant. The plot follows Major Kusanagi, a cyborg officer from Section 9, a network security force in Tokyo. Section 9 is on a mission to arrest the Puppet Master, an elite hacker who can hack into cybernetic bodies, and implant false memories in order to get people to do what he wants.
Overall, I liked Ghost in the Shell. If you’re into cyberpunk, you’ll probably like this film too.
Matrix VS Gits (ghost in the shell)
See I told you so.
Thinking With Portals
Until May 24, Portal, the best game of the last decade, is free to acquire. And if you get it in that timeframe, it doesn’t boot you out on May 24. It’s yours to keep, forever.
But you should already have it. If you don’t… WHAT’S DE MADDER WIT YOU!
And if on May 25 you still don’t have it… Shame on you. Much shame on you.
Best of WVR #136
Miku sounds lovely here. The Appends were put to good use.
In unrelated news, I have another complete semester of college under my belt. Summer is here, and that means that a certain other weekly column of mine will start appearing again…