Anime, etc.

I've been feeling a real lack of interesting anime. Haven't seen anything new since I last posted. Any recommendations from anyone?

Random subject change:

I didn't think it was possible, but somehow Portal 2 was actually funnier than the original. Valve has shown time and again that when they put something out it's worth the wait. Which is why I'm convinced that Half Life 2: Episode 3 will be the Holy Grail of video games. Or something. And I still wouldn't be able to play it due to my inability to process what's going on from FPS mode.

Been watching Comic Con footage of The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra panel and it's pretty amazing. I'm probably most excited for this property in the upcoming future.

True Blood has been continuing its tradition of loosely interpreting the word "adaptation". It was more offensive in season 3 in regards to Alcide's character, but it still bugs me because book 4 is my favorite. Not like this is a tragedy or anything because it's still entertaining as all get-out to watch. I do like a lot of the ideas they're presenting.

 

The show still commits the deadly sin of thinking I give a damn about Jason's character and what he gets up to. Don't get me wrong, I love Ryan Kwanton (and I mean: damn is he entertaining) but I still hate the character. Jason=booooooooooooooring. Crystal=dumb. Jason+Crystal=Jill Sleepy-Time. And WTF is up with Bill becoming KING!? What!? Bill is terrible at leadership! That's a major character flaw. He's built on not leading. A major character trait of his is loner, not leader. I can see where one might get confused, both starting with 'l' and all, but sheesh.

True Blood also continues to think that Sookie is a secondary character, which as we know is in line with the book series. Y'know, it's not like she was the main protagonist of all those books...waitaminute. Well, it's not like they were from her point-of--hold on. Uh, well, it's not as if all the side stories have her as the narrator, right? Oh wait, all except one do. And that one story was a complete side story and didn't feature any first person narrative, the only one of Charlaine Harris's stories from the Southern Vampire series to do so. I'm just so tired of Jason's stupidity taking up precious screen time from Sookie. Or Bill's non-rule. Or Tara and Lafayette's boring "Oh noes, Eric gonna kill our asses" storyline. Dramatic irony only goes so far on that one. It wouldn't bug me except for four seasons it feels like Sookie actually gets the least amount of screen time and SHE'S THE MAIN FRIGGIN' CHARACTER. She's the one who introduces the audience to this wacky world, and we explore it on her terms. Why can't the show reflect that AT ALL?

*sigh*

Rant over for now.

Question for the day: If you could cosplay as any character ever, who would it be and why? I'll answer in my next post for myself but I'd like to hear any of your answers first. :)

Undead

I'm the living undead now, returned to the world as a nerdy zombie. Only explanation I have for neglecting this blog for so friggin' long. For reals.

Watching Comic Con footage of The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra and it's moved me so much I had to post for the first time in forever:

Korra and her mantourage look awesome. I'm having fangirl squealing moments that make me extremely ashamed of myself because I was beginning to think I had finally grown up and reached my mature phase.

Cannot begin to describe how pumped I am for the show...nor how much artwork I've collected over the past year.

Also excited for Mass Effect 3 as it looks amazing. We might also get a FemShep trailer! How cool would that be!?

And everyone is drooling over the steampunk wonder that is Bioshock: Infinite. If only I could play FPS without motion sickness. Or stop jumping everytime someone fires at me. This one will be relegated to me watching Tony as I just can't do FPS. Still looks amazing and thematic and everything we've come to expect from these developers.

Batman Arkham City is also a big fangirl moment for me. When I saw the Catwoman stuff I was very excited, but then a little sad. Her lines seem very cheesey. I'd hoped we'd moved on from Selena making all the cat references and just have her be a real person like Bruce. He doesn't make goofy bat references at all.

Still, most excited about Korra. It's been a long time since I've been looking forward to American animation like this.

Kate Daniels (Ilona Andrews)

I've started reading the Kate Daniels series (Magic Bites, etc.) by Ilona Andrews and am now firmly ensconced in the third book Magic Strikes. This has quickly developed into an obsession. Finally: a strong female character who isn't fan service or pure romance heroine. Kate is a hard ass who can be a real bitch with a heart of gold. She's perfect, and damn entertaining.

I've always been a bit iffy on the urban fantasy genre because it always seemed so cheesy to me. I mean, look at Twilight. That represents all the traps, pitfalls, and cliches of urban fantasy. "A hot-mysterious-guy-with-a-big-secret-who-tries-to-be-all tough-but-has-a-soft side who falls hopelessly in love with our normal-but-slightly-special-gal-next-door? And his secret is of a slight supernatural tint and her slight specialness plays right into it? Oh em gee, they are sooo made for each other! Aren't they perfect? Squee, squee, shriek and squeal." I mean, who hasn't seen this trope before? They're just tarting it up with borrowed (or in this case, made from wholecloth) mythos. It's kinda like Neon Genesis Evangelion: a standard mecha with random Christian symbolism that tries to pass itself off as deep because there's something different being done here. Except not.

Anyway, the above rant was supposed to illustrate that urban fantasy makes me raise my eyebrow and turn my nose up some. But when it's done right it is some of the best literature I've laid hands and eyes on. Mike Carey is a really good example of this. He writes this really underappreciated book series about an exorcist named Felix Castor. Felix (or "Fix" as he's called by his friends) is this perpetual cynic who's just trying to eke out a decent existence admist all his screw-ups in an increasingly unstable world that is becoming overpopulated by the dead, whether it be their souls or their corpses. He's an exorcist by trade as it's what he knows how to do, and he kinda tries to do right in the world as long as it doesn't cost him too much. He's a genuinely good person who life beats up on constantly and a running gag is he's always physically damaged somehow in the books. (Read: getting the shit kicked out of him.) There is some really great world building (just like in the Ilona Andrews books) that really fleshes out the melding of modern era with fantasy ideas/tropes. It's fun and yet no one in the States reads it. It took two years to get book four here from Britain. It's not like people had to translate this stuff, so what the hell? Anyway, it's great literature like this that could really validate the genre and pull in more mainstream readers that gets passed over for tripe like Twilight. America? We need to talk. Now.

Whoa

Whoa, I haven't touched this in a while. Real life has sucked me dry on things to do in my free time. I hate pretending to be a responsible adult.

Good news: Dragon Age II is coming out soon. Bad news: it's not soon enough. Sometime in May.

Rockband 3 is now available along with the spiffy peripherals (keyboard, Pro Guitar, actual guitar, Pro Drums, etc) and currently screwing with my head. I can't wait for my friends and I to be done with the tour mode yet because being forced to play the "random" songs that keep popping up at the gig we're at is making my eye twitch out of my socket. I DON'T WANT TO SING SLIPKNOT. They suck. Harmonix is re-releasing previous songs with keyboard added to it--for money. Why would I want to pay again!? Thanks Harmonix, you just went from awesome to kinda retarded. If they had released twenty-to-thirty songs for free they'd have generated a ton of goodwill that they could've gotten away with murder next. Right now they just stand at "suck".

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was good. Kind of a Prince of Persia 4 meets Devil May Cry love child but it worked its stuff well. Until that ending. I mean, it was a great ending but kind of WTF!?!

*sigh* I really want a game where the protagonist is female and a strong character and not just fanservice. Like a female version of the Prince from the Sands of Time trilogy. That'd be really fun and new. Down to earth, friendly, kind of a brat at times, but doing the best she can because she feels she ought to. Absolutely no one fits this description unless you count the female versions of the Bioware RPG heros. Frankly it's a little disturbing to think on that.

I'm tired and need sleep. Will try to update more thoroughly in the near future. And yes, I realize I never reviewed Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for you guys (it's on DVD this week). Sorry.

Dragon Age 2

For fans of Bioware, Dragon Age, RPGs, or any combination thereof, there is the new CGI trailer just released by Bioware for Dragon Age 2.

Have a link for viewing pleasure.

Some of what I know: You're not a Grey Warden. You play as Hawke, a human who is either male or female. The story follows you throughout your life (i.e. decades) in Fereldan, starting with the end of the Blight in the last game. You have a conversation wheel a la Mass Effect, and the art style will be stylized. The fangirl in me is totally squealing like piglet on crack. Or something. That's about all I know for right now. Feel free to comment and tell me how wrong or insane I am.

Review Soon

I'll be reviewing the Scott Pilgrim movie soon. Haven't had time to do it since because of real life, but that'll change soon. It will be full of spoilers for the graphic novels and the movie, though, so fairly warned be ye, says I. Yargh.

Also got Toradora! volume 1 so I'll be posting about that soon as well. Please look forward to it!

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World opens today! I pre-ordered the soundtrack on iTunes and got the bonus music video of Clash at the Demonhead (Metric) "Black Sheep". The soundtrack rules, by the way. Beck is Sex Bob-Omb, Metric is Clash at the Demonhead, and I have no idea who does Crash and the Boys but they're really great. Anyway, it's a really fun soundtrack. I also really want to go see it tonight, but have to wait for tomorrow to go see with friends.

Go see it!