On the first day of Christmas, my true love for anime gave to me…
A wish-granting rock.

We sometimes require a bit of magic in our life, a bit of miracle, to help one find his way. Natsuiro Kiseki, an anime which depicts four close friends, Natsumi, Saki, Yuka and Rinko, made wishes to a big rock in their childhood. Years later, they found out the rock could genuinely grant their wishes, and thus, the rock start working it’s magic, supporting the four friends with their troubles and even conflict.

I like the simple, yet magical ambiance the anime gives out. The rock gives out a particular impression that it had a personality of it’s own, taking care of the girls, and even “moving” along with them when they were on a trip. The rock also indirectly teaches and guide them through it’s magic, allowing the girls to understand themselves and those around them some more. One very memorable scene I like is when Yuka and Saki switched bodies, Yuka wants to have a mature composition and presense and since Saki has the perfect attributes for both. The rock grant that wish by switching their bodies around. With her new body, Yuka had fun, but she realized that people aren’t looking at her, they are looking at “Saki”, a body which Yuka was currently possessing.

If the rock’s attributes can be counted as a “personality”, then the rock itself could probably be counted as a “character”, and it’s kinda ironic that I like the rock as much as I like the characters, perhaps more too. The rock is like a guardian, granting wishes to the girls yet those wishes meant nothing but a stepping stone for the girls to grow up. It is all thanks to the rock that the girls had reached to the standing point they are at now.

Natsuiro Kiseki is definitely one of the anime that is easily overlooked, as it’s one of the best anime in the respective season. And indeed, if there’s no Santa Claus, there’s always a Santa Rock!

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love for anime gave to me…
7 legendary servants
6 witty lies
5 fun choir members
4 gigabytes of data
3 lovely flowers
2 sides of consciousness
And a wish-granting rock.

Type-Moon had always been one of the most famous visual novel studios, most of their medias had gained worldwide fame and most of them had an anime adaption. The light novel series Type-Moon collaborated with Nitroplus, Fate/Zero, is no exception, and it’s anime adaption is on it’s way to become one of the best anime in respective year.

Fate/Zero aired in a similar fashion as with Rinne no Lagrange, divided into two halves, the first half, aired in 2011, became the most promising anime in that year and with the second half aired in 2012, people’s high expectations were definitely answered. At least, mine did, not sure about the light novel readers.

As with Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero depicts a battle royale between seven magicians, and their servants; heroic spirits summoned by the magicians themselves from another era. The victory will be granted their own wish by the grail. This battle is known as the Holy Grail War, a battle for the ultimate supremacy and the ultimate wish.

Fate/Zero’s attraction comes in the form of intriguing plots, a signature element in Fate/Stay Night. Of cause, aside from the stories, Fate/Zero’s stunning visuals and sounds are definitely quite the attention-grabber. High-quality animations and vivid backgrounds are the main aspect of it’s visuals, making action sequences a luxury to see. One of my favorite scenes which uses this top-quality visuals to it’s extreme, is the motorcycle chase scene between Saber and Rider, it really made use of its high-quality budget for the animations, and it made the chase scene appealing, and immensely gorgeous.

The ultimate highlight of Fate/Zero however, is the various philosophical themes it explored and each of the character’s subjective perspective towards them. This makes dialogue and characterization in Fate/Zero top-notch. Scenes that explored such philosophical themes became my favorite as well, the episode where the prospect of kingship was discussed is one example, then there was a short argument between Saber and Kiritsugu quarreling about whether or not “holy elements” like pride and glory is needed on a battlefield. Fate/Zero is a trove of philosophical ideas, something I really like about the show.

Immensely thought-provoking, good sounds and visuals and an interesting plot, Fate/Zero is definitely one of the best shows this season, and the second half ended with a perfect transition to Fate/Stay Night.

The Last Story is a Japanese Wii game developed by Mistwalker. What’s more, with a story written by Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and music composed by former Final Fantasy music composer, Nobuo Uematsu, localizing of the game was in high demand, and thanks to Xseed doing so, this brought to us perhaps one of the better Wii JRPG games for years to come.

The game features a band of mercenaries, who aspired to be knights, with protagonist, Zael, perhaps being the most ambitious out of the group. On one particular quest, Zael stumbled upon a mysterious power which embedded itself into his arm. And with the warlord Zangurak, who seeks similarly mystical power for his brethren, Zael and his home city, Lazulis Island, was approaching it’s doom more faster then he and any of the mercenaries in his group could ever anticipated.

While the stories may seem slightly generic, the game’s storytelling actually excels in pacing; you will not feel everything getting too draggy nor too rushed (even including the time needed for gameplay), bringing forth an incredibly flowing storyline. Every plot elements were slowly and carefully build up, from Zael and Calista’s fateful encounter, to the city’s slow decays and destruction and so on. As the plot develops slowly but majorly as you proceed into the game, the story gets even more intoxicating. It has a wonderful plot overall, befitting it’s name of “The Last Story”.

Characters are always important as catalyst of the plotlines, and the engaging characters in The Last Story did so excellently. The tales of main characters are told in a slow but gradual manner, more so, some other characters even have full chapters dedicated to them! Another part I like is the interaction between the characters, they give an impression of a rowdy, yet friendly group, of cause, they don’t forget to joke around at times, creating some humorous moments.

Onto the gameplays, it’s great, but contain some flaws. In order to shed some light onto it, The Last Story’s fundamental gameplay is almost equivalent to some MMORPGs, with slight changes like how the skills work and stealth system. In basic battles, it is immensely simple, you can move Zael around and in order to attack an enemy, you can just move your character towards it and he will automatically attack. While this may seems pretty convenient, it is actually more annoying then convenient. Especially when Zael are facing hordes of enemies, it’s get very difficult to target. If one of your allies is dead and you’re on your way to revive him/her, you will literally take forever to get there if there are a large group of enemies blocking your way, due to the auto-attacking system. You can however set the attack to manual in the options. Manual attacking decreases damage though, which I had no idea what’s the logic behind it.

Other then that, the other aspect of the battle system is fine. Zael has the power to “gather” opponents and to “revive” aforementioned. By “gather”, Zael can essentially be a tank, soaking all of the damage towards him where your other weaker characters like the mages can cast their magic without interruption. Zael also has a skill bar, which he can use it for several strategic skills, including a powerful swipe slash from a cover, an AOE attack which removes status effect in the area and so on. In your party, your allies will be controlled via AI, though you can issue specific commands if you like, in doing so, they will be more faster in executing a particular skill, though this will cost you a portion of your skill bar.

The Last Story is advertised as a stealth game, but in my opinion, it actually doesn’t even play a big part in the game. When fighting against tough bosses, you would be too busy trying to fend off enemies attack and tanking instead of just hiding. In fact, I think there are only two or three bosses in the whole game where I only made full use of it, though there are some parts of the story which forces you to use it too. Or is it because I’m bad at hiding in general? Well, knights don’t hide anyway.

Though a good part of The Last Story’s gameplay is actually the boss fights itself. You’re not granted with the freedom to hide-and-attack, especially for some big monster-type bosses like the Kraken, that much is understandable. In contrast, hiding is replaced by brainstorming. Each boss has a certain effective ways to beat down, whether or not it’s using some specific skills, or to knock down a fire blazer, or to target specific location of the enemy and so on. It’s all up to you to figure out the perfect tactics to defeat your foes. Fighting the bosses are like figuring out a puzzle within a time limit, and it’s actually pretty fun.

Although the designs of the dungeons and other locations are especially linear, I like the Lazulis Island itself for it’s expansive free roam area. For a linear navigating game like this, the city in contrast is big; each section of the city is always bustling with people. During the early parts of the game, you already gained access to the massive amount of sidequests available on in the city.

The visuals in The Last Story are pretty good for a Wii game, in fact, I think it might be one of the best looking Wii game. Overall, character designs are pretty and the backgrounds look good, despite muddy. Some parts of the game like the stargazing scene is exceptionally beautiful. Though with such quality, it would actually look best in a 720p HD resolution, something which the normal Wii with 480p native resolution couldn’t support. Perhaps the new Wii U might be able to do something about that.

With the game soundtracks composed by the infamous Nobuo Uematsu, of cause, they don’t disappoint. The intro’s somewhat sad and mellow tone already captured my interest as soon as I was on the start menu screen. Aside from that, the game certainly has a few other notable tracks too, for example, the arena song, which gives the impression of a Spanish bull fight. However, overall, even though it’s certainly high quality, I think the soundtrack falls a few levels short compared to some of his older musical works.

The battle system, while unique from other RPG games, certainly has it’s own fair share of drawbacks. The game had other minor flaws as well so it definitely isn’t a perfect game Even so, The Last Story is still a good game nonetheless and I’m sure fans of RPG will still like it.

Rating
Story: A-
Character: A-
Gameplay: B+
Visuals: A
Sound: B

Final Score
8/10

I had been a long-time fan of the action genre, and was especially a fan of anime ones as well. Watching anime for a long time, I find that actions can be easily categorized in four manners:

Level 1: Pure Physical Strength

This is in my opinion, one of the most rarest, and underrated types. In a word, they are the “realistic fights”. The characters fight in very humane way, no special powers, no sci-fi powers, no weird abilities, no superhuman strength; just pure ordinary physical fight. One notable example of this is Hajime no Ippo, at best, the characters can execute very fast, and strong knock-out punches. Their attacks aren’t ridiculous to the point that they can break walls or floors, let alone super powers.

Level 2: Inhumane Brute Strength

A slight opposite to the previous. In here, the characters still don’t possess magical powers or something, but they have strength which surpassed the boundary of human limits. A good example is Kenishiro from Fist of the North Star, he is a martial artist who can implode people; causing some nasty blood-splattering damage, he can even break walls, tanks and so on, possessing superhuman strength which ordinary humans wouldn’t normally be able to attain. Another is History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi (especially the manga), the masters there can exert so much damage that sometimes you had to question if they are even humans themselves.

Level 3: Hybrid

This is probably the most common, easily found from most anime like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Hunter X Hunter and so on, to even some anime like Darker Than Black and Fate/Stay Night. Hybrid here, quite self-explanatory, means the hybrid use of combat between physical and superhuman abilities, with the latter originating from some sci-fi or magic. This is where the fight itself becomes completely unrealistic. Even if their abilities originated from science, they could use whatever physics to explain it, but in the end, it’s an ability which isn’t practical in real time.

Level 4: Full Magic

This is again, just as rare, or even rarer then “Pure Physical Strength” from Level 1. Again, pretty self-explanatory, it is where the characters use their special powers fully instead of relying on their physical strength. On top of my mind, I could only think of Shinsekai Yori, one of the ongoing anime in Fall 2012, so I would love to hear more recommendations for this. Actually, I could say Mahou Sensei Negima as well, but I’m not sure about that since I haven’t read the manga yet.

In the end, I think one of the most underrated types, and ones I would like to see or read more, is Level 1, “Pure Physical Strength”. Unrealistic fights are good, but watching realistic fights can be quite emotionally impactful. It’s like from every punch or stab, the characters are genuinely feeling the pain, where as from anime like One Piece, their levels of destruction gets so over-the-top that you just couldn’t feel anything from them anymore.

Any of you have any recommendations from the more lesser known action types from above?

Note: A belated Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!

Height: 154 cm
Weight: 42 kg
Three Sizes: B73/W53/H76
Blood Type: O
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Green

She is Shirou’s Servant, an agile but powerful warrior. Loyal, independent, and reserved, Saber acts coldly but is actually suppressing her emotions to focus on her goals. Her class is considered the “Most Outstanding,” with excellent ratings in all categories. Since her Master cannot effectively provide her with Mana, she minimizes her activity to preserve what she has. Saber is frustrated by Shirou’s “protective” tendencies, believing his erratic and reckless behavior will jeopardize her chances of winning the Holy Grail War.

This is one of the figures that was long extinct since I even started my hobby of collecting figures. As luck would had it however, this same figure had a re-release sometime ago. I immediately snatched my chance and bought her, only to find out later that there are pre-owned sales of her for cheaper prices at amiami. Ah well, at least I get to enjoy her while she is “fresh and virgin.”

I love flowery patterns on the side and on the top of the box, but the patterns may be a bit too much and overcrowded in my opinion – makes the box more flashier than is necessary. The scale figure comes with a big stand and two versions of Saber’s Excalibur, the concealed and exposed versions.

Donning on her blue battle dress, with a dynamic fighting pose, as always, she looks exceptionally gallant. At a scale of 1/7, she stands at more than 20cm tall and is also extremely wide. She can really eat up a lot of space, almost equivalent to most standard horizontal scale figures.

The details on her face is amazing, and her flocks of hair is well done too. Although I find her ahoge to be a bit more thicker then usual. I could had sworn the ahoge on the anime is more naturally thin and hair-like.

Details on her outfit are crafted with precise accuracy – I especially like the magic symbols on her chest armor. Though the type of silver paint they used made the metal looks very grainy for some reason.

I’m also quite loving the details of the sword, the exposed version of the sword in this case. That detailed magic inscribing on the sword is quite good, though likewise with the armor, the extremely grainy paint kinda puts me off a bit.

Aside from the grainy metal, the dress overall looks good. Although, she wasn’t able to come in one piece. One side of her dress had an awkward paint job – looks like a bad coating or perhaps the top layer of the paint had been chipped off.

The stand, aforementioned, is incredibly wide. It had also been made to make it “interact” with the figure, having a part of it diagonally sliced, probably by Saber’s sword. I usually dislike text on figure stands, and likewise, had to really question it’s presence here.

To support such a huge and heavy figure, the stand luckily offers a huge peg to withstand it – something which looks like a small bended metal bar which can be fitted into the slot on the stand and on one of Saber’s leg. It creates a better, stable balance but can look awkward – from what I can see, Saber is supposed to be running and sidestepping while swinging her sword, but the increased height makes it look like jumping instead. This is however, hard to notice from afar though.

Likewise with that one particular side of the dress, her other sword, the concealed version doesn’t come with one piece either. The round thingy on the side is supposed to be fit nicely on the handle, in fact, the exposed version was pretty much fine in that regard. This concealed version however, is very loose no matter how hard I push it in, and I can only guess that it was a factory manufacturing error. When I opened the package, the first thing that fell out of it is actually that round orange thing which was supposed to fit into the sword tightly. It was a very small piece too so luckily, I was still able to find it (it actually fell down twice). It kinda reminds me of the wings of the Kuroyukihime figma I bought sometime ago, one side was fine, and the other side of the wings just keep falling off.

I always had a gripe about special effects on figures, and while this one is definitely well done than some others I saw, I still prefer the exposed version of the sword – looking like a true genuine sword with all details exposed. In this version, the sword is likewise in the anime, concealed by the wind, at least that’s how it’s trying to look like. The blue swirls around the sword can easily be mistaken for blue tentacles however. The transparent outlook of the sword and the unclear inscribing does creates a sort of concealment that the figure is going for however.

In the end however, I love this figure, and I’m really proud to have her in my collection. Although I had some tiny nitpicks of flaws I noticed here and there as you can see, those are quite easily overlooked in the grand scale of things.

Anime crossovers – the act of combining two (or maybe more) anime shows together in an episode. Crossovers is a great way for showcasing the interactivity of two different worlds, and the interpersonal relationship between characters from each respective worlds. It’s incredibly fun to have your favorite characters entering an unknown world – a world with a totally different format and rules, and forced to align himself to the properties of the new world.

However, from the very few anime crossovers that I had watched, I mostly have pretty mixed feelings about them. Why?

The catch here is that if you were to line up two anime hand-in-hand, one can’t help but compare. This is my main issue when watching the Gintama X Sket Dance episodes. While the Sket Dance group is an incredibly fun bunch, I tend to find the boisterous Yorozuya from Gintama much more exhilarating, thrilling and exciting – you never knew when they would present a bizarre, unpredicted joke out of nowhere. The frank verdict here is that I like the Gintama characters more than Sket Dance characters, even though the characters of the latter aren’t too sloppy either. However, the lack of balance in character appeal here slightly degrade the quality of the crossover, as my attention was mostly focused on the Gintama cast rather than Sket Dance’s.

The other issue here is a bit more simple. Even if the crossovers combined two popular shows, it doesn’t really mean everyone had watched and kept up with them. Gintama aside, a lot of my friends here never really watched Sket Dance. Though my problem lies elsewhere – One Piece X Toriko. While I like One Piece, I never watched nor read Toriko (think I should probably start soon). In this case, personal preference and the lack of balance in appeal comes into play as well.

The positive side to all these however, is that the crossovers help advertise each other, and I assume it’s pretty much the main goal. Using the previous example, One Piece X Toriko – it helps to advertise Toriko, the underdog of the pairing; those who had never heard of Toriko, or those who had heard of it, but had never checked it out, might finally be interested after seeing them paired up with their favorite titles.

As you can see, I regard an equal balance of appeal from both shows a crucial consideration to take into account. Perhaps this is why I really, really like Fairy Tail X Rave – probably my favorite anime crossovers so far from the very little I had came across. This time, I adore both series. Fairy Tail, while maintaining a typical shounen format, is still a pretty fun show – brimming with burning (see what I did there?) actions and fascinating music soundtracks. I don’t think I ever mentioned this before, but Rave is also one of my favorite manga. I first came across Rave on AXN – a TV channel which aired a few anime shows back then. It easily became one of my favorite anime shows too at that time, though the unfinished ending leave a lot to be desired, and thus, I turned to Rave’s manga.

Since a new season for Rave after all these years seem unlikely, it was great to see the Rave cast back again, together with their original seiyuu. The bunch from Fairy Tail is just as fun and rowdy, and the Rave characters are just as audacious – both characters from respective shows had extremely great chemistry with each other. Furthermore, Fairy Tail and Rave really works as a crossover, they have a lot of elements synonymous with each other – magic, Etherion, Oracon Seis and characters like Plue, Jellal/Sieghart and Jiggle Butt Gang emerging in both shows.

The crossover started with a Fairy Tail OP, and the characters from Fairy Tail meeting the Rave characters in a town, the former on guild business while the latter probably in the middle of their travels. The mentioning of Haru (Spring) from Rave and Natsu (Summer) from Fairy Tail and their seasonal reference of their names during their conversation is nice, since it’s an interesting discovery I found out when comparing their names.

Peaceful conversations don’t last of cause, and chaos immediately ensures due to some misunderstanding. Locked in combat, Haru and Natsu started rampaging around the town with their battle, though their bout didn’t last long however, as the two got humorously one-shotted by a certain someone from Fairy Tail.

Haru: You’re the type to save anyone faster than anybody else, right?
Haru: Hot-blooded types.
Natsu: And likewise, so you are, right?
Haru: Maybe it’s our fate to fight alongside after all…
Natsu: Plus we will not lose to anybody.

Interestingly, the anime added a lot of original material from here onwards not inclusive in the manga, and they did good. They introduced an enemy, which appeared in one of Fairy Tail’s filler arcs – Jackpot, albeit in a sort of modified form in this crossover. With the same goals and objectives insight, both the Fairy Tail and Rave groups worked together to defeat their common enemy, and throughout the fights, Fairy Tail’s signature celtic rock soundtracks were constantly blasting in the background. Not forgetting to have some attention for Rave too however, during the last section of the battle with Jackpot, Natsu and Haru fought together, with Rave’s opening serving as the background music – nothing but spectacular.

During their departure, unlike the manga, which ended with the characters mostly either feeling neutral (since a majority of them didn’t meet with each other) or frustrated (mostly in Natsu and Haru’s case) with the other’s group. The anime ended with a more positive note, as they fought together – bonds are formed. Both the characters from both shows look forward to meeting each other again, and obviously, I too, hope they will, manifesting the possibility of future Fairy Tail X Rave sequels.

（*´▽｀*）

I believe this is the first time I joined the Secret Santa Project. It involves bloggers recommending 3 anime (TV series, OVA, movies, anything works) below 26 episodes to another random blogger, in which he or she must pick one to watch and review. The bloggers recommending them will also anonymously received other anime recommendations from another random blogger and likewise, must pick one to watch and review. For my picks, I chose Little Witch Academia.

Admittedly, I never watched any of the anime created by the “Young Animator Training Project”, so gems like Little Witch Academia completely passed my radar. Little Witch Academia was produced for Anime Mirai 2013, alongside Ryo, Death Billiards and Arve Rezzle. Of all the short films, Little Witch Academia had been receiving a lot of hype, hence, my choice for the aniblogging project.

Little Witch Academia, created by the young animators of studio, Trigger, features a a world of magic and fantasy. The anime film puts you into the shoes of Akko Kagari, a student of Luna Nova Academy which is a school specifically for young witches. Boisterous situations seem to assault her in any way possible – from chaotically flying with a broom, entering dungeons and facing monsters, and she even had to defeat a dragon!

As with anime like Dennou Coil, Little Witch Academia relied a lot on it’s world-building appeal, and for the most part, it worked excellently well. The whole settings of Little Witch Academia bolsters a heavy Western influence – magic, witches, fantastical beings are just one of many Western elements among others. I would even go as far as to say the film is akin to a Disney film. Little Witch Academia’s world is entertaining and engrossing – brimming with all the fun and rowdy stuffs you would expect from a world of magic and fantasy. It is also very fun to see how their magical abilities is utilized in the world – from flying, floating, lighting, magic blasting, telekinesis and so on. As the anime film only run for about 26 minutes, the settings haven’t been explored as much as I would had hoped for unfortunately, and if it were to turn into an anime series somewhere down the line, this is something I would love to see more.

For one-shot medium like this with incredibly short length, in most cases, it’s pretty hard to develop proper character developments, in fact, it’s not even the primary focus. In Akko’s case though, it’s done decently well enough. From all the students who came from magical families, Akko is the only one who isn’t from one. She has qualities in her character which one wouldn’t normally associate with magic, acting as the perfect contrast to the rest of the characters; thus creating an empathetic and immersive experience – and is the hallmarks of a good protagonist. Although the cast is a bit too large to develop on all the characters in just 26 minutes, that means at the very least, the characters at their very base had to be fun, quirky and likable to bolster it’s character appeal, which I feel the anime film was able to done so considerably well.

Little Witch Acedemia looks and sounds like a Disney film. Technically-wise, animations features smooth and fluid motions – most majorly during the more fast-paced sequences. The design of the characters and other main subjects also had the look and feel of other anime, but also has designs that differs it slightly from other standard anime – especially in the way the visuals and animations are handled, the result is cartoonish, but it matches well with the wacky atmosphere. The use of bright and vivid colors enriches the world too.

Also, for an anime film that relies on world-building aspects, the backgrounds are drawn exceedingly well. For example, the academy – it has an architectural design that represents Western mansion during the medieval ages, the interiors likewise, also has a classy and prestigious ambiance which reinforces the Western artistic appeal.

The anime film features fully orchestrated soundtracks, which flexibly shifted it’s tones accordingly to all the different situations. From the gloomy to the mysterious and to even to the hopeful tones, the orchestrated pieces work excellently – it captured the essence and even strengthened the emotions of the situations quite well. Although at major portions of the series, the film would go on for long periods of time without any background music and if you listened closely, evidently, it seems like there are not a lot of music composed for the film either.

No matter how capable the animators are in compressing their content in just barely half an hour, there are indeed definitely interesting things left out due to time restrictions – more of the academy, more fantastical creatures and so on. The film even introduced certain subtle elements that would even work in a TV series. Despite the time restrictions however, what the film was able to give us, was already quite an ample amount of pleasurable viewing experience.

I enjoyed Little Witch Academia, probably more so then what I would originally expected from a film only intended to train greenhorn animators on-the-job. In just 26 minutes, the film provided us with a wondrous and fantastical journey of magic and fantasy – it’s Harry Potter, “anime-fied!”

Rating
Story: B-
Character: B
Art: A-
Animation: A
Sound: B+

Final Score
7.5/10

I had been a long-time fan of the action genre, and was especially a fan of anime ones as well. Watching anime for a long time, I find that actions can be easily categorized in four manners:

Level 1: Pure Physical Strength

This is in my opinion, one of the most rarest, and underrated types. In a word, they are the “realistic fights”. The characters fight in very humane way, no special powers, no sci-fi powers, no weird abilities, no superhuman strength; just pure ordinary physical fight. One notable example of this is Hajime no Ippo, at best, the characters can execute very fast, and strong knock-out punches. Their attacks aren’t ridiculous to the point that they can break walls or floors, let alone super powers.

Level 2: Inhumane Brute Strength

A slight opposite to the previous. In here, the characters still don’t possess magical powers or something, but they have strength which surpassed the boundary of human limits. A good example is Kenishiro from Fist of the North Star, he is a martial artist who can implode people; causing some nasty blood-splattering damage, he can even break walls, tanks and so on, possessing superhuman strength which ordinary humans wouldn’t normally be able to attain. Another is History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi (especially the manga), the masters there can exert so much damage that sometimes you had to question if they are even humans themselves.

Level 3: Hybrid

This is probably the most common, easily found from most anime like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Hunter X Hunter and so on, to even some anime like Darker Than Black and Fate/Stay Night. Hybrid here, quite self-explanatory, means the hybrid use of combat between physical and superhuman abilities, with the latter originating from some sci-fi or magic. This is where the fight itself becomes completely unrealistic. Even if their abilities originated from science, they could use whatever physics to explain it, but in the end, it’s an ability which isn’t practical in real time.

Level 4: Full Magic

This is again, just as rare, or even rarer then “Pure Physical Strength” from Level 1. Again, pretty self-explanatory, it is where the characters use their special powers fully instead of relying on their physical strength. On top of my mind, I could only think of Shinsekai Yori, one of the ongoing anime in Fall 2012, so I would love to hear more recommendations for this. Actually, I could say Mahou Sensei Negima as well, but I’m not sure about that since I haven’t read the manga yet.

In the end, I think one of the most underrated types, and ones I would like to see or read more, is Level 1, “Pure Physical Strength”. Unrealistic fights are good, but watching realistic fights can be quite emotionally impactful. It’s like from every punch or stab, the characters are genuinely feeling the pain, where as from anime like One Piece, their levels of destruction gets so over-the-top that you just couldn’t feel anything from them anymore.

Any of you have any recommendations from the more lesser known action types from above?

Note: A belated Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!

Bravely Default is a 3DS spin-off of the Final Fantasy series, and while Square Enix did re-use elements of their previous Final Fantasy games-Bravely Default utilized and improved them. While Bravely Default is based on the Final Fantasy series, in particular, I found it is very heavily based on Final Fantasy I, the first game of the main series-from concept to story, from story to gameplay.

The story began with the great chasm-a massive earthquake which destroyed Tiz’s village, Norende, with him being the only sole survivor of the village. Meanwhile, vestal of the wind crystal, Agnes, found the crystal consumed by darkness, which also in turn, led to the various disasters in the world-the great chasm being one of them. The two met together, followed by Ringabel, an amnesiac and Edea, a Duchy of Eternia; the four of them went off on a massive journey to save the world from further destruction.

Especially with how story-focused games had become recently, there aren’t anything special about Bravely Default story-wise. It uses the same formula of main character and his comrades traveling together to save the world-only that unlike classic Final Fantasy titles, the context is expanded with much, much more details and coherence. Aforementioned, Bravely Default is heavily based on Final Fantasy 1 and you’ll see a lot of similarities-for one, this game also has the same fair of your main characters running around to get/awaken (Bravely Default’s the latter) the four elemental crystals of the world. As had been previously mentioned, it’s a used concept which isn’t too special, but not too shoddy either.

I do however, want to give praise for the game’s world-building efforts. Instead of just throwing us in a random world without much information (a reminiscence of most classic RPG), Bravely Default really used a lot of focus to build up it’s world, and it’s world-building is pretty good even compared to modern standards. From a story standpoint, this gives the settings of Bravely Default much more backbone, providing details and features to the kinds of worlds we had probably seen a thousand times-in particular to the political conflict of different religious ideologies. Instead of feeling bored, it’s easy to feel immersed into it’s riveting world.

There is also another noteworthy element in regards to Bravely Default’s storytelling, only thing is, I’ll be stepping into spoilers territory to elaborate on this. At the very best, I’ll just be talking about settings and storytelling structures-nothing major will be revealed. But a warning for spoilers in the following paragraph just in case.

Bravely Default’s story was written by Steins;Gate author, Naotaka Hayashi, and those whose familiar with Steins;Gate will probably see what’s coming. Yup, it’s the time travel/parallel world thingmajing again. I of course have no problem with it in games (in fact, I love Chrono Trigger/Cross), but Bravely Default’s way of executing it, to be frank, seems cheap and lazy. Everything will simply jump back to day one, forcing you to replay everything you had already done in the last few chapters. What’s more, the game didn’t just do this once but four times in total. There are few changes in dialogues and how events unfolded, but unfortunately, too little to justified playing everything again with the exception of chapter 7 and 8 where the enemies had some surprising team-ups, revealing some of their hidden relationships with each other. This problem which still occupied a majority middle portion of the games though-creates a flaw, and perhaps my only gripe with it’s gameplay, in that it’s too repetitive somewhere down the middle, but I’ll talk about the gameplay more in a little while. To summarize my point, I just feel this portion of the game is too stretched. Is it necessary? Well, yes, since despite it’s draggy issue, it does provide some important insights, however extremely sporadic. Can it be shorter though? Hell yes. Though now that when I think about it, I could had skip the multitude of sub-quests when I reached this part, and I could finished these mundane chapters faster, still kinda sucks for completionists though. (end of spoilers)

The characters seem stereotypical at first glance, but arguably have ample depth to make up for it. One of the main aspect of the games which help shape up their characterizations and developments are the frequent party chats you can press Y to initiate in the middle of a gameplay, sort of like the conversation mechanics of the Tales series. They are very nice and interesting addition to the game which other than giving information on the world and settings, also provide character backstories, their struggles or sometimes just a brief comedic exposure of how they usually spend their day-to-day adventures with their quirks. Listening in also creates a better transition of main scenes as far character developments are concerned.

The characters however really does take a while to grow on you, Tiz and Agnes mostly though, since by far they are the least quirky of the bunch. Tiz I see is mostly hated as being the dull character of the group, but to me, not entirely dislikable though, and some character revelations in regards to Tiz near end-game is brilliant and provide some dimension for his normality. Agnes also had been particularly hated too, in due part to her foolishness and naivety, which I can understand, but can’t help but feel it’s more of a storytelling issue and less of a character fault. Admittedly though, Ringabel still takes the cake as being the best character in the game-his character story really has some shocking twists, and he has a pretty vibrant personality to boot.

But still, a big part of what makes Bravely Default such a great game for me is it’s gameplay mechanics. It’s battle gameplay uses the classic Final Fantasy turn-based RPG style, with a main addition. You now get the ability to use “Brave” or “Default”. What these two do is that they are “turns multiplier”. Brave helps increase the number of turns, or BP (brave points) to be game-specific, allowing you to do multiple things in succession per turn, up to a maximum of four, and “Default”, with the addition of being an equivalent to “Defend”, also helps store up BP again for you to use/Brave again. These two game mechanics, which get it’s name from the title, form the absolute core of it’s gameplay, and creates an innovative change to an otherwise, stale turn-based mechanic.

What makes Bravely Default’s gameplay so great though, isn’t it’s battle gameplay mechanics, but rather, it’s customization aspect. Aforementioned, Bravely Default borrowed a lot of it’s core concepts from Final Fantasy I-including it’s gameplay mechanics; however, refined extensively for modern tastes. The game uses a job system, similarly to how you started your classic Final Fantasy titles by choosing what job you want your four characters to be. In Bravely Default however, you have the ability to change your job at any time. Furthermore, you also have the ability to equip two jobs at once-one primary, the other secondary. By doing this, you gain the use of skills from two different jobs (although your stats increase will still depend on your primary job). Additionally, you can also equip any weapons/armors you like regardless of your job choice (although the jobs still do have specific preference to certain equipments). This seems like a small thing but in hindsight, it provides a refreshing way of customization like no other-providing a completely new realm of possibilities and strategies to beat your foes. Last but not least, the game also allow you to equip “support abilities”-basically something like stat increases, status immunities and other additional effects. As long as your job level is high enough to get those abilities, you can equip them regardless of your primary or secondary jobs.

As for the jobs themselves, there are a total of 26 of them! Each of them with a different role, specialization and play style. This mass array of jobs, coupled with Bravely Default’s “turns multiplier” mechanics and customization aspects, are what makes Bravely Default such an excellent game-giving you a lot of flexibility and strategic freedom. By each of these mechanics alone, they aren’t really special, but when all these small tweaks and improvements from it’s predecessor are combined together, it becomes a game with an excellent gameplay, and feels completely new and refreshing.

Those are the bulk of what makes Bravely Default such a great game, but of course, aside from those, there are still a lot of misc gameplay elements I had yet to mention. The game also uses a day/night system, and some of the enemies which appear on the map will change depending on the time of the day. The ability to also toggle random encounters on/off and switching difficulties in the middle of playthrough surprisingly doesn’t break the game at all-they improve convenience and flexibility, which believe me, is an important improvement to have due to how inconvenient classic RPGs can be.

There is a side game in Bravely Default which also cleverly utilized the 3DS’s interactive features. This side game involves rebuilding Tiz’s village-Norende (as pictured above). At any time, you can check your village reconstruction status on the lower screen, and by the use of Streetpass or through “Update Data” via adventurers, you can recruit more villagers into your village to help rebuild your village. Through doing this, you have access to powerful equipments not sold anywhere else.

Speaking of interactive features, in Bravely Default, you can also send/receive attacks from your other friends registered in FCs (though only once per use until the attacks need to be resent again), which is nothing major, but also a nice addition to the gameplay. Last but not least, in battle, there is also a move to stop time for awhile which disregards your current BP, called Bravely Second (incidentally, also the same name of it’s upcoming sequel) Aforementioned, the gameplay suffers from repetition in the middle portion, but that’s honestly the only issue I had with it, overall, I have high praises for Bravely Default’s gameplay.

The DS/3DS are mostly known for their Super Deformed character designs, and Bravely Default is a game which took that signature visual feature, and take it to it’s highest level. They also have the advantage of having great concept designs, giving them a sort of fantastical feel reminiscence of Final Fantasy series.

But mostly the visuals are great because of the incredibly detailed backgrounds which helps complementing the graphics majorly. One thing about Bravely Default is that it obviously puts a lot of effort in world-building and it shows a lot visually. The environments seem like water-color painted, and looks absolutely gorgeous and inviting, and it’s great how the game would zoom out to look at the whole area at times when you’re idling your character; they really are breathtaking to look at, and the developers clearly know that, allowing players to look at the whole scenery at will. The artistic backgrounds are captivating, and helps bolster the sense of immersion. However, the music strengthen that feeling even further.

I had always like Square Enix’s music, and Bravely Default is also promising in that regard. Earlier I mentioned how artistic and immersive Bravely Default’s visuals are, but by pictures alone, they wouldn’t had achieve such an effect without it’s music-in due part because of how nostalgic they sound. Bravely Default, instead of utilizing more modern, contemporary compositions, opted for an orchestrated classical approach instead, and it worked wonders. Bravely Default’s music feels like a great throwback to the classic 8-bit tracks of classic Final Fantasy titles, but modernized with more detailed composition and powerful audio hardware. From the adventurous mood of the overworld music, to the hopeful battle tones; it’s not always easy to mimic something so rudimentary and re-detail them to suit the modern era, let alone to relieve the empathy these tracks were able to express. Overall, this gives Bravely Default an edge, musically, over it’s peers.

Bravely Default is a huge throwback to traditional JRPGs, and show them despite newer-style JRPGs, traditional ones like these still have a place to stay. Bravely Default took the core concepts of JRPGs and expanded them vastly to suit modern needs-it’s best aspect is it’s extremely flexible gameplay mechanics. While it does borrow an established formula, Bravely Default is still a great game despite a few shortcomings. I wouldn’t say Bravely Default is one of the best games ever, but one of the best 3DS games? Sure, and I would recommend the hell of it for anyone who’s a fan of traditional RPGs.

Rating
Story: B+
Character: B
Gameplay: A+
Visuals: A+
Sound: A

Final Score
8.5/10

Note: SC is the sequel of this trilogy, and if you haven’t play FC (the prequel), note that this post will contain FC-relevant spoilers, since the story picked up immediately from FC.

Ahh, Trails SC, I have been waiting for this shit for 5 years! Okay, maybe not that long, but close (checking the date of my review on the prequel, it’s written on August 2012, but I probably finished the game even way back). Here’s the thing though, when you waited that long, expectations will just keep building up, how would Trails SC fare against all those expectations though? Well, it more than enough met my expectations, and more, and considering how long I have waited and how much my expectations have been building up, it’s really a testament to how good Trails SC is.

Remembering his forgotten past, Joshua left Estelle on a dangerous hunt on the “society”, and hoping to bring down the one who calls himself “Professor”, the one who had been manipulating him around on the very first day. Taking some time to recover mentally, Estelle also set up on her own journey too-a journey to bring back Joshua and to fend off the society “Ouroboros”, a dangerous group of men who had been threatening the major cities of Liberl, the same society that Joshua used to be in, and the same society Joshua is trying to bring down as well.

I thought FC’s story was pretty good despite being a RPG romance with fair amount of light-hearted moments, but that was just a tip of an iceberg. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Trails SC took it up several notches. Admittedly, it’s unfairly advantageous though, since FC had already set up all the plot points and twists, and SC just needed to follow up. Trails SC pretty much focused on the society, whom you had already met one of them way back in FC (which you probably would had remembered to be one of the hardest fight of the game). It was a nice, dramatic change of pace. Although while pacing is slow, it’s the type of story which will definitely reward players with their patience. Again, similar to FC, Trails SC also have a considerable amount of quests to do each chapter. Of course, you can skip them, but some of these quests delved so much deeper into the Trails lore, world, characters (even NPCs!) and so on, so much as if you would feel you’re a part of the world-you would definitely be missing out if you were to skip them.

And you know, the premise of Trails SC, of the main character leaving the heroine-it totally reminds me of a certain anime (*cough* Shana S3 *cough*), just that it’s much better written. What’s this done though, is that it brings some very interesting table to character dynamics and development. One of the best thing about FC was the dynamics and chemistry between Joshua and Estelle, and when one of them had left, Estelle really had no choice but to work with other characters. It was a very refreshing change of pace to see how her dynamics is like with other characters. Furthermore, one of Estelle’s main character motivations was to be stronger and not be as reliant on Joshua-which at the end of the day, was a character development she definitely achieved. It’s a journey of fighting off the society and bringing back Joshua, but it’s also just as much of a personal journey for Estelle. Additionally though, characters and relationships are developed for other characters and they too, receive conclusive arcs of their own. You barely know some of them on FC, but SC really went all out in focusing their character expositions and developments. Really, this sequel is all about character resolutions, which is why the third part of this trilogy (which I still haven’t heard any news of localization at the time of this post) is mostly regarded as a huge epilogue.

The gameplay battle mechanics work more or less the same as FC, I’ll try to brief them through. The gameplay works in a turn-based format, but with movement system integrated as well (he/she can only move to areas with highlighted blue grids). You can move/attack/cast arts/crafts. Arts are Trails’ equivalence to magic, in which you can personally customize with quartz. Depending on the way you set up these quartz, you will have new orbal arts (AKA magic) on top of increasing your stats. Crafts are like a character’s personal skills, and exhausts CP instead of EP. S-crafts are like a character’s ultimate skills which require at least 100 CP to use. Once again, a well thought out system where you will really be spending a lot of them setting up stuffs in your strategy-devising process.

Treasure chests are witty in Trails SC.

A new addition to the gameplay battle system is the ability to chain crafts. By doing this, you will be able to chain craft attacks with 2 or 3 characters at once, providing both can reach the targeted monster(s). I feel like not a lot of people use this for some reason, but for my usual strategy, especially during early on, it’s a system I had been abusing like crazy, so to me, this new addition is pretty godsend.

Additionally, there are also some minigames like gambling and fishing too, which are all great side activities to do when you just want to take a break from the main story and quests. Throughout the game, you can also collect various books and newspapers which really helps immersing into the story.

As far as visuals are concerned, I really have no complains. It’s not exactly the greatest, but works perfectly in it’s context. Character models will be in their SD forms, similar to the prequel, but that doesn’t stop it from having extremely breathtaking, detailed backgrounds-which really helps making exploration around the world that much fun. During conversation, characters also have quite a considerable amount of different portraits in the dialogue boxes to express their emotions. Estelle’s blushing faces are kinda cute, but I digress. Playing on Steam certainly helps too, since the graphics feel much more sharer and crisper than when I was playing FC on the PSP.

Olivier is Best Guy.

And then, there’s the music, which is undoubtedly top-notch. The music seems like a blend of classic RPG tunes and contemporary style. Trails series also have a weird attachment to jazz pieces-you will notice how jazzy tracks would fill your ears as you step into battles-instead of the usual rock or any “adrenaline-pumping” genres; which at the end of the day, still gets the job done satisfying so as they surprisingly fit the mood well. There’s a song I believe, called “Infiltration”, which as it’s name suggests, is the song you will hear while you’re infiltrating enemy bases. I mean, come on, jazz songs while you’re sneaking enemy bases? It can’t get any better than that.

And that’s not even including other noteworthy songs like the amazing opening, the calm, tranquilizing songs while you’re traversing outside of cities, the mysterious tunes while you’re navigating inside towers, ballads with very empathizing melodies during story-related events (dat thematic “Hoshi no Arika”) and so on. Just like what a good RPG with good OST should be, Trails SC has a huge set of soundtracks which fit their various moods respectively to a tee. More importantly, these are the type of songs which will stand the test of time and years after players had finished the game, they would remember very iconic moments simply just from listening to the songs. These are all hallmarks of a very good OST, and Trails SC definitely achieved that status.

Now that I finished Trails SC, I finally understand the hype of the game in the JRPG fandom. While FC is good, when compared to the series as a whole, it is at best, the introductory phase. SC took what had already been setup by FC, to new, incredible heights. Trails SC is an extraordinary RPG-great story, characters and music, and is a game I definitely recommend if you finished FC, and liked what you had seen of it. Trails SC is a huge emotional ride, and is one of the best JRPGs I had played to date.

Rating
Story: A+
Character: A+
Gameplay: A
Visuals: B+
Sound: A+

Final Score
9.5/10

Tokyo Ravens is an anime aired way back in 2013, though I never really knew about it and first found out about the anime through Animax. I heard some people singing praises of it so I decided to check it out. While I find that it’s definitely better than a lot of it’s LN anime peers, it’s not exactly amazing either.

The Tsuchimikado refers to an infamous onmyouji clan, but perhaps the most infamous tale of all dated way back during World War 2-and involved one of their key member, Tsuchimikado Yakou and his failed ritual, which caused a phenomenon known as the “Great Spiritual Disaster” and has since thrown Tokyo into a state of spiritual disarray. Fast forward to the present, Harutora is a family member of the prestigious Tsuchimikado, but he himself has shown no interests in becoming an onmyouji, after all he can’t even sense spiritual power. An incident occurred however, which forced him to stop running away from his responsibilities as a Tsuchimikado, and became a familiar to his childhood friend and true heir of the clan, Natsume, to aid her in battles.

As what you would expect from LN action/supernatural titles, Tokyo Ravens has a habit of really making things overly-ambitious. Battles between factions, spiritual disasters, and plots lasting over 50 years. It’s to the point that sometimes, it can even get a little confusing to follow. It’s however still much better than it’s LN anime peers for a few reasons. For one, the transitions between comedy slice of life and plot-centric moments aren’t as jarring. Even better, some of the former are also important in delving a little bit more in the characters, which is otherwise impossible during the more haphazard overarching plot-progressing episodes; so they aren’t exactly without purpose either.

In fact, I would even go the extra mile and say this-Tokyo Ravens handled the serious and dramatic moments exceptionally well. Tokyo Ravens may be a little confusing at times — LN terms-expository a flaw in it just like much of it’s peers (although Tokyo Ravens is better in this regard, admittedly), it has a knack for being genuinely emotional when it needs to. In fact, the first few episodes already begun in an emotional hailstorm, and a lot of people praised the near-end episodes for very similar reason. It just knows how to turn up the emotions when it needs to.

It’s hard to feel anything if the characters aren’t any good though, but boy are the characters good in Tokyo Ravens. All the main characters truly carried the show, with some mysterious adult characters as the icing on the cake. The main characters especially look like basic LN archetypes at first glance but not as simply one-dimensional if you would scrutinize; though admittedly, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they are deep though, just that they are deeper than I thought they would be. Harutora for example, is possessed of the nice guy-archetype but is uncertain of himself due to his lack of magical ability. Suzuka has a villainous-archetype but struggles with her guilty conscience. I’m satisfied with the extra layer of characterization the story went into, as it really helps me delve into the characters myself. Even better, the dynamics and chemistry between the main cast are great-even the romantic progressions between Harutora and the heroines are believable; standard and cliche, yes, but believable. Despite the archetypal cast, the narrative engages their relationships with each other in a genuine, sincere manner-and this aspect is truly the main highlight of Tokyo Ravens.

If I were to be frank, the animations aren’t really the best in this show. The biggest offender though is definitely it’s usage of CGI for their familiars, which made them look stiff-y, robotic and just generally out of place if anything. Other than that though, visuals overall are decent. The magic battles are always a sight to see, bolstered by it’s incredible cinematography (despite the shitty animations and jarring CGI). And besides, while animations are a love-or-hate thing in Tokyo Ravens, there’s no denying it has great designs. Character designs are good and distinguishable, the familiars’ designs are also pretty detailed and it has excellent backgrounds that reflect it’s urban fantasy setting well.

While there aren’t a lot of really noteworthy songs in Tokyo Ravens, most of them are able to etch themselves into the scenes naturally and supplement the stories-the dramatic and emotional scenes are especially accentuated nicely this way. Combined that with excellent openings and endings, and with a great cast of seiyuu to boot, the audio side of things certainly satisfied me too.

Aforementioned in the introduction, I find Tokyo Ravens superior than a lot of it’s LN peers of similar genres, though I still don’t think it’s truly amazing or anything. It has a few issues I expected out of the genre, but it also has some things that made the show stand out from the rest, in particular-it’s genuine and sincere characterizations. To that end, Tokyo Ravens won’t be a masterpiece anytime soon, but it’s definitely on the higher tier of LN action/supernatural anime for me.

Rating
Story: B-
Character: B+
Art: B
Animation: C-
Sound: B

Final Score
7/10