Sometimes all it takes to restore your faith in a certain genre is one exceptional work. In the case of mobile endless runner video game genre, the work would be Alto's Adventure. The amazing runner is developed by Snowmanâwho surprisingly doesn't make a lot of gamesâand was originally published for iOS early 2014. Just a few weeks ago, developer/publisher Noodlecake Studio brought the critically acclaimed mobile game to Android and Amazon Kindle. It took me exactly one run to fall in love with Alto; itâll took you exactly one review to try it.Â
Let's put the obvious visual greatness of the game aside and talk about endless runner first. Endless runner is a casual breed of game where you control a character that automatically moves through the stageânot necessarily by running; skateboarding, jetpacking, you name itâ to keep him/her from crashing/falling. The controls are usually pretty simple, you tap to jump and swipe to slide, or something in that nature. With the gameplay as simple as it is, endless runners are often packed with a lot of cosmetic variety, for your character and/or the environment he/she runs in. You will also usually find a set of upgrades you can purchase either with the in-game currency you collect during your runs or with actual cash. These purchases typically increase your survivability, allowing you to gather more coins and gain higher scores.
A lot of runners focuses on the run-upgrade-run cycle a bit too much, making it more appropriate to call them endless purchaser/upgrader instead of endless runnerâbut that kind of concept is already taken. Alto's adventure manages to avoid this pitfall and focuses on the running experience instead.
To begin with, let's finally address the how stunningly beautiful Alto looks. Set in a snowy mountain range over the narrative of a llama farmer chasing his runaway pack by snowboarding, there's actually less to see if you compare Alto to other titles such as Minion Rush or Subway Surfer. However, Snowman made sure to put enough care to each of Alto's in-game objects, not only making sure that each of them looks nice, but also contributes to the whole running experience. Take the day and night system for example: instead of changing the weather completely at the start of the run, Alto's adventure allow you transition through day and night in a single run. Moreover, the transition is made gradual instead of abrupt, adding to its realism. You can literally feel the flow of time inside the game as the background switches from the clear blue of daytime to the orange of dawn until finally night falls.
The same approach could be seen in the purchasing aspect of the game. Aside from the absolute absence of cosmetics, there's barely any upgrades to buy. Two of the 4 upgrades in the game are quite expensive that you need to spend hours in the game to unlock them. I see this as a nudge from the developer to pay less attention to the upgrade and more to the actual gameplay.
Other than tapping the screen to avoid rocks, Alto allows you to do snowboard tricks in order to increase your score. Successfully doing one will reward you a temporary speed boost that made it possible to survive wide chasms. However, the available tricks also adheres to the game's rule of minimalism; the only thing you could do is grinding over a building and a back flip. However, the speed boost is absolutely vital for your survival so you will definitely spend a lot of your time tryingâand failingâto perform tricks on the air. In fact, you will probably find yourself ending the run by greedily trying to do tricks more often than by crashing into obstacles.
Alto's Adventure includes a quest system like many other runners, granting a character unlock every ten level. Unlike many other runners though, different characters have different stats in Alto; some character specializes in tricks and other in speed. Snowman made sure that each character counts, like everything else on Alto's Adventure and more importantly, like your skill and timings. The level 40 character's silhouette looks like a llama so I'm looking forward to unlocking that particular one.
Alto's Adventure is the crystallization of all the good things endless runners offer. It's pretty, compact, and perfectly polished. It also excels in the more technical side of things; the animations runs very smoothly on my ASUS Zenfone 2. Unlike the iOS version that costs $2.99, the Android port is free so you might want to grab your next favorite time waster on the Google Playstore now.
The Perfect Insider is a 2014 detective drama that follows Emi Takei as Nishinosono Moe, a mystery-loving architecture student and Gou Ayano as Saikawa Sohei, an associate professor that is weirdly adept at solving cases. The 10-episode series airs on Fuji TV from October to December. It tells the two's misadventures with various murder cases that happened around them, with an emphasis on the mystery; each case lasts for exactly 2 episodes. Adapted from a 1996 mystery novel by Hiroshi Mori, it's a drama riddled with various highs and lows.
Emi Takei and Ayano Gou performs adequately in the drama, showing just enough character and emotion required by the writings with no glaring flaws. However, the romance subplot between the two falls short; it constantly revolves around Nishinosono's annoying clamor for attention and Saikawa's near-tsundere indifferent responses without any development. The writing is the one to blame for this though; the two's relationship are written off as childhood infatuation solidified by Nishinosono's traumatic loss of her parents in a plane crash. Their dynamics were already set in stone from the beginning of the story: Nishinosono with her constant, almost obsessive infatuation, and Saikawa with his restrained affection as a responsible mentor to the girl.
Surprisingly, the most memorable performance comes from the relatively new actress, Akari Hayami (previously member of idol group Momoiro Clover), as Magata Shiki, a genius programmer that serves as the primary antagonist of the series. Although she doesn't appear muchâbriefly on the pilot, then on episode 5,6, 9, and 10âthe impression left by the character may as well carried the whole series. The detached yet crazy look she first showed on the short conversation with Nishinosono in the pilot is what made me pick up the drama; combine that with the plain white robe and the maternal vibe the actress naturally emits and you got a very unsettling, uncanny character that you can't help but to be curious with.
A lot of it also have something to do with how well Magata is written; the original material for The Perfect Insider originally only covers the Magata case told in episode 5-6 of the drama titled "Subete ga F ni Naru" (lit. Everything Becomes F). While the original novel is part of the S&M (Saikawa & Moe) detective series that spans 10 volumes, I suspect that the other 4 cases is an original for the drama (if someone can confirm this that would be nice). That way, the difference in quality between the Magata caseâand in extension, her characterâand the rest perfectly made sense.
The Magata arc is the best arc among the 5 arcs of the drama; probably the only one of the bunch that offers a deep and intriguing enough mystery to carry the two-episode duration. The case happened on Himaka island, an isolated island that serves as a research facility that houses the genius programmer Magata Shiki. Magata spends her whole life contained in the facility for murdering her parents. On a study tour to the island, our protagonists was faced with a perplexing murder incident that found Magata killed on her supposedly isolated chamber. Adding to the horror is the reveal sequence of the murder where Magata's dismembered torso, dressed in a wedding dress, was delivered from inside her chamber by an autonomous servant robot. The mystery of the murder is as deep as it is bizarre.
The other cases definitely tried to match the lunacy of the Magata arc with their dismembered heads, dissapearing corpses, and invisible weapons, but none managed to come close. To make things worse, they tend to fall into a formulaic structure of initial murder-minor reveal-additional incident-resolution. Predictability is a severe problem for the series, especially with the 2-episode format that easily bores viewers out of their mind.
Ultimately, The Perfect Insider is a decent detective drama that tries to extend the outstanding original material and present compelling murder mysteries. Sadly, they forgot to pay enough attention to the dynamics between the two main characters that should've been able to keep viewers interested, especially when the mysteries fail to do so. However, you definitely need to watch at the Magata arc in episode 5 and 6, the only exception to the failures of the series that will keep your eyes glued to the screen for the whole 2 hours.
Hallyu hits in different sizes and shapes but the one that fascinates me the most is Korean varieties. Being an amorphous creature that it is, varieties may be the best platform to disseminate Korea's culture as you can practically put anything into it. However, outside the realm of cultural marketing, a number of Korean varieties succeeded in bringing fresh ideas to the TV screen with great entertainment values. Case in point: Crime Scene, a whodunit variety show produced by JTBC.
Crime scene originally aired on 2014, with a renewed second season the year after. This post in particular will talk about the first season that consists of 10 episodes.
Taking place in a studio set, Crime Scene is a show where the cast are presented with a murder case to solve. Each of them are also assigned a role in the murder narrative, with one being the true culprit. Given a set full of props acting as the crime scene, they must point out the murderer via majority voting by the end of the episode. To do that, they are allowed to investigate the crime scene and interrogate each other. The culprit win the episode if an innocent is voted, likewise, the rest of the casts win if the culprit is voted. The winner are then rewarded with a certain amount of money.
The first three cases lasts for 2 episodes, and the rest are contained within a single episode, making a total of 7 cases in Season 1. The murder mysteries are usually taken from real happenings, explained typically after the conclusion. The roles for each cases were chosen randomly by the casts, making the criminal role switches from case-to-case. The cases covers a variety of settings from a classroom murder to a prison murder.
The thing Crime Scene gets absolutely right is the asymmetry of information between the cast. As each person plays as a different person in the story, the information they have on the other is noticeably different. For example, player A is cheated on by the murder victim, a definite motive for murder. However, only player B knows this beforehand as the person who cheated with the victim; the rest of the cast need to find an evidence in the set to prove this. Person B also may not necessarily brings this information to light, as it could cast a suspicion on him/herself. The pre-established relationship in the narrative impacts the dynamic of the show greatly, creating memorable reveal moments throughout the show.
Crime scene stars former pro gamer Hong Jin-ho (of TvN's The Genius fame), broadcaster Park Ji-yoon and Jun Hyun-moo, singer NS Yoon-G and lawyer Lim Bang-geul (later replaced by Kang Yong-suk) as regular members. Each episode would also throw one guest in as a variable x in the cast's interactions. For a show that relies very heavily on the members, Crime Scene premier flaw lies in the cast. While each of them is respectable in their own right, the first season feels lacking ingenuity and wit. With a very low win rate for the non-murderers, the final vote are often reduced to random guessing without any incrimating evidence; in my memories, the first season of the supposedly clever show associates more to stupidity. Hyun-moo and Yoon-G in particular brings almost nothing intelligent to the table (the latter is clearly there for the visuals), as opposed to Jin-ho and Ji-yoon (that not surprisingly, were brought back for the second season).
To be fair, the first season of Crime Scene feels very experimental. The pacing of the show is super slow on the first 6 episode, only because the case are split into two episodes. Fortunately, it was fixed from episode 7 onward. The narrative design on the roles are often very confusing, giving a similarly significant motive to almost every cast without an incriminating, substantial evidence (resulting in the aforementioned random guessings). The season was not horrible at all, though, a brilliant idea of a detective variety is definitely there; an idea that is consolidated in the excellent second season of Crime Scene.
As far as my knowledge goes, incremental/idle games found their initial momentum back in 2013. Long before games such as Clicker Heroes, Adventure Capitalist, and Sakura Clicker found their way to Steam publishing, the public's obsession of this genre began with 2013's Cookie Clicker, a browser game made by Julien Thiennot, better known as "Orteil". At one point, Cookie Clicker became so popular that the Japanese start picking it upâand as per usual, made tons of fan art. Now, almost 3 years after its first release, Cookie Clicker V2 is finally out, once again dragging unsuspecting innocents to its Cookie Hell.
Cookie Clicker may not be the first incremental game out there (it's preceded by games such as Candy Box and Cow Clicker), but it's the first popular one that features a gameplay focusing on incremental idleness aspect. In Cookie Clicker (and subsequently, the new-and-improved V2), your objective is to produce cookies by clicking the giant cookie on your screen. The cookies are used to buy workers (cookie-clicking cursor, cookie-baking grandmas), buildings (cookie farms, cookie mines, cookie factory, cookie bank, cookie temple, wizard towers, time machine, you get the idea), and upgrades to produce even more cookies automatically. It's like a never ending cycle of cookie greed. There's no actual end to the game; the end is when either your life or your interest in the game ends.
However, the game does come with hundreds of achievements and upgrades to unlock as you descend to cookie madness. Some of them are unlocked very straightforwardly by producing a certain amount of cookies, and some of them aren'tâlike the one that requires you to hack the game. Progressing through the game will also trigger some events like the Grandmapocalypse, adding some variation to the waiting game. These things will be your obsession and justification for madly playing the game on your browser.
How far can you go in Cookie Clicker V2? Well, after you reach the point where you can hardly afford anymore upgrades, you can opt to "ascend". Ascending to cookie heaven resets your current game, BUT it gives you heavenly chips and points that you can use to buy special, end-game upgrades. It also gives a permanent multiplier to your cookie production. The combination of the already extensive upgrade tree and ascension probably results in hundreds of hours of gameplay until you unlocked every achievement available. But rest assured, you will spend most of those hundreds hours going on with your ordinary life, only with Cookie Clicker running silently on the background.
So what makes Cookie Clicker so popular then? A part of its popularity may have something to do with Orteil's above average aesthetics; the game is simply nice to look at. The UI is well-designed, and Orteil's pixel arts isn't too shabby either. But Cookie Clicker's charm lies at the tiny, interesting details and features in the game: the humorous news ticker on top ("News: ancient baking artifacts found on distant planet; 'terrifying implications,' expert says"), the flavor texts on the upgrades ("Counter intuitively, grandmas have the uncanny ability to become more powerful the older they get"), and stuffs like the variation of grandma sprites that appears when you unlocked new buildings (Wizard Towers unlocks Witch Grandmas, Portal unlocks Demon Grandmas, etc.). Orteil is an all around interesting guy that put so much love in his game that you can feel them.
So what's exactly new in V2? Well, aside from the ascension system I have already talked about, the guy mentioned dungeons and dragons and more exciting stuffs. Around 1 week after playing the game I've yet to encounter them though. Currently I'm on 1.6 billion Cookies per second, trying to generate enough cookies for my first antimatter particle condenser (or something). Cookie Clicker is a bit more slow compared to its derivativeâand I stupidly closed the browser overnight a few times, but hey, I'm alive and still clicking cookies; that have to say something about Cookie Clicker's mysterious attraction.
First, a disclaimer: I have never read Deadpool comics or watched any animation that features him as a titular character; I also didn't play his 2013 video game. What I know about Deadpool is primarily an amalgamation of the knowledge I gained from internet articles, videos, marketing stunts, and word of mouth. I feel like setting the context is especially important when talking about Deadpool since it somehow correlates to the amount of enjoyment you get when watching the movie. Despite that, though, I still dare to say that Deadpool is a great, boundary-pushing superhero flick that everybody could enjoyâwith extra treats for those who are worthy familiar with the source material.
The first thing you will notice about Deadpool is how oddly-structured it is. The film starts from the middle of the story and moves back and forth via flashbacks to tell Deadpool's origin until it finally catches up to the current scene around the 60 minutes mark. Fortunately, it manages to not be confusing, if only because the movie plot is extremely uncomplicated: Wade Wilson is a gun-for-hire who fell in love with a girl, got cancer, got superpower to cure said cancer, got ugly because of said super power, got revenge to the villain who made him ugly, and finally got the girl back; the film starts at the beginning of the revenge thingie.
That being said, it's a bit of a shame since the sudden transitions between the present and the past chopped up the firstâand arguably the bestâaction sequence of the movie into small bits. The scene Iâm talking about is the one you have previously saw on the trailer: a shootout in the middle of a highway. It is a definite favorite, one that infuses short and slick violent takedowns with Deadpool's trademark glee and wit.
Ryan Reynolds is as comfortable as he can be on Deadpool's skin. The movie nails Deadpool's costumeâintroduced in the movie with the best superhero crime-fighting origin montage ever, but Ryan Reynold tops that by... well, actually being Deadpool. His voice, expression (before the red mask), and movements matches everything I know previously about the merc with a mouth.
Speaking about mouth, Reynold's definitely played a big part in Deadpool; throughout the movie, there are only a few moments of silence. Their scarcity is exactly why, though, each one of them dishes out a profound impact every single time. Whenever the guy who talks all the time stops talking, you know shit just got (a bit) real.
Now let's address the elephant in the room and talk about jokes. And by jokes, I mean dick jokes. There's a LOT of them and while it was kinda funny at first, it fell flat after 2-3 times (it was all downhill after the one about Colossus' steel ones). Know that this still doesn't count other raunchy jokes covering almost every sexual topic imaginable such as anal sex, fisting, and masturbating (now you know why the R rating). Itâs so close from being the defining aspect of the movie, and not a very good one at that.
Another thing that's abundant in the show is pop-culture references and easter-eggs. Not only references of the inevitable mute, laser-spewing, Origins version of Deadpool, the CGI-costumed Reynold's Green Lantern, and the Marvel universe in general, you'll find references from every part of the industry such as Wham!, People's Magazine, Star Wars, etc. This is the aspect of the movie where your enjoyment is proportional to the amount of knowledge you have on pop culture and Deadpool in general. Some of them appears as obscurely as the name of a street, or a name on a cup, so it somehow correlates with your observation skills too.
As seen in the movie's trailer, two X-Men show up on Deadpool: the CG-animated Colossus and the lesser known Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Not only both mutants were more than short cameos in the movie (both participates in the movie's final action scene), but they also come off as memorable characters with brilliant interactions with the titular character. Collosus is awesome because of two reasons: his spot-on Russian accent, and his straight-laced attitude that contrasted wonderfully with Deadpool's chaotic neutral, making some of the most memorable banter in the movie. As for Negasonic, it's her indifferent, quiet, emo-teenage act that fuels Deadpool's silly comments.
Other supporting characters also played their part well. T. J. Miller, playing Deadpoolâs best bud/regular tavern bartender, in particular brilliantly conjures up hilarious moments from simple conversations with the titular character. Morena Baccarin, playing the role of Wade Wilson's love interest, is charming enough to root for, even though unfortunately the movie doesn't gave her enough room to create a heartfelt romantic element in the movie.
While the R-rated jokes, 4th-wall-breaks, and pop culture references definitely brought a lot of fun to the movie, they are not exactly what makes Deadpool great. James Gunn, director of Marvel's Guardian of The Galaxy ranted just this morning and said that the reason the movie is such a huge hit is its originality. I have to say I agree with the guy; the reason I forgave Deadpool's obvious choppy pacing and overly immature jokes is the simple novelty of the viewing experience. As I sat there in the cinema, awestruck by a ridiculous superhero character talking to me from behind the silver screen, I realize that I have never ever seen anything quite like this before. Deadpool was the first; any subsequent Hollywood title trying to cash in from the formula won't be.
Fixing Your Childhood Trauma: Boku Dake ga Inai Machi
Boku Dake ga Inai Machi is an ongoing manga by author Kei Sanbe. It's a relatively low-key seinen title published in Kadokawa Shoten's monthly Young Ace. That, is of course, before the anime adaptation hits this winter 2015/2016 season with great praise, notifying a wide audience (me included) of its existence. Being more of a reading type of guy, I opt to read the source material instead of following the ongoing adaptation; to my pleasure, it's a great title that utilizes the Groundhog Day trope Well. The following review is kept as spoiler-free as possible.
Satoru Fujinuma is a struggling manga artist on his late 20s. Other than working a part-time gig delivering pizza, his life is perfectly normal, if not a little bit mediocre. One exception though, for unknown reason, Satoru is blessed (cursed?) with the power of "reruns". The power allowâor rather, forceâhim to relive certain periods of time on his life, usually one where an incident is happening nearby. The loop goes on and on until Satoru found the oddity of the loop and prevent the incident in it.
The manga starts off by telling stories about how Satoru solves small loops that usually only takes as long as minutes, but took a sharp turn after a certain incident that causes our protagonist to be suspected as a murderer. This case is apparently connected with another case, one that serves as the series's main plot: a 18 years old serial child murder/kidnapping case where three children from Satoru's hometown, Kayo Hinadzuki, Aya Nakanishi, and Hiromi Sugita, disappeared. Determined to break out of his current predicament, Satoru triggered the biggest rerun ever and returned to his 10 years-old self. The manga then follow his journey to prevent the forgotten incident that left a huge trauma on his psyche.
Suspense and mystery is definitely Boku Dake ga Inai Machi's forte. Author Kei Sanbe successfully establishes both by revealing only bits and pieces of the serial murdering/kidnapping incident at a time using the pretext of the main character's trauma. As we follow Satoru's reliving of his childhood, he gradually reminiscence each part of the three-act kidnapping drama, slowly giving new information about the perpetrator. The slow, recollection-driven reveal somehwat reminds me of Naoki Urasawaâs 20th Century Boys. Another thing that helps a lot with the thrills of the manga is the characters. The back stories for each of the victims, largely revolving around social isolation and abuse, is well-fleshed and their character interactions works well in making the reader feel invested and emphatic.
Surprisingly, the mystery about the kidnapping case wasn't kept for very long. Hints were properly dropped in various chaptersâone chapter in particular even literally said, "in this conversation, exist a lot of hints about the case"âso keen readers will realize the identity of the criminal in time. It's not exactly a bad thing, since around 30 chapter in (around 2 and a half year after the serialization) the kidnapping arc is concluded. From then on, the story revolves on Satoru's life after conclusion of the incident and a new problem that arises from then on. It's quite proper to close the case off seeing there's only so much a kidnapping case can offer, so in that sense you could say that the pacing of the series is quite spot-on.
Kei Sanbe's illustration isn't particularly mindblowing, but the simple character designs is excellent at making the story feels rooted and real; it's a good complement to the excellent storytelling offered by Boku Dake ga Inai Machi. All in all, the manga is definitely worth a read. Currently it's on its final story arc at chapter 38 and is scheduled to end on the April 2016 edition of Young Aceâa perfect catch-up timing if I might say.
One-Murata Sampler: Dotou no Yuushatachi - Dangan Tenshi Fan Club
Everybody know that Takeshi Murata and One made their big break together with One-Punch Man but not everyone is aware that the bald superhero manga isn't their first collaboration. Just months before One-Punch Man started in June 2012, the writer/illustrator duo created two one-shots: Dotou no Yuushatachi and Dangan Tenshi Fan Club. While I'm quite unsure whether these two titles are meant to be trial runs for their partnership or promotional drum ups, but they do serve as good samplers for those who are interested in the two.
Dotou no Yuushatachi (lit: Heroes of Fury) was released on January 4th, 2012 in the Young Jump magazine. It's the shorter one of the two one-shots, consisting of only 19 pages. As you might expect from the low page count, the story is absurdly simple: a Princess of a country is abducted by the Demon King. To save her daughter, the King of the country decreed that any hero that is able to beat the demon king will be wed to the Princess. The Princess, however, is extremely ugly that the royal court resorted to trickery by putting a fake picture in order to attract heroes.
The one-shot registers more as a single joke told in a manga form than a storyâprobably because it actually is. It's interesting to note that One-Punch Man is similar to Dotou no Yuushatachi in the sense that it's based on a joke; in case you didn't know, the name One-Punch Man is a play on Anpanman, a Japanese picture book series starring a superhero character made of bread. The entire shtick about a hero who is too overpowered that he blasts every villain with one punch admittedly also feels like a joke; the only difference with Dotou no Yuushatachi is that One-Punch Man includes a whole universe surrounding that one idea.
Around 3 months after the publication of Dotou no Yuushatachi, Dangan Tenshi Fan Club came out in Miracle Jump. This time, One pens a more elaborate story; Dangan Tenshi is made up of 57 pages of Murata's illustration. The story is about Natsuno, a young girl who is given a magical power to protect the world from some demonic creatures. As the title suggest though, the one-shot focuses on her fan club: her male classmates that, unbeknownst to her, discovered her magical girl side-job and become her secret fans. The one-shot starts with the arrival of the transfer student Oogami that changes the secret relationship between Natsuno and her fan club by blatantly inquiring about her magical powers and revealing the existence of the fan club, assuming that the entire story about magical girl is a prank.
Dangan Tenshi Fan Club provides a clearer image on what One and Murata's collaboration would feel like: a humorous superhero story with a serious edge provided by Murata's outstanding art. You can also clearly see some elements of One-Punch Man here. The deadpan main character Oogami bears so much resemblance to One-Punch Man's Saitama (minus the hair), and the detailed armor-ish design for Natsuno's powers seems like a prototype for Demon Cyborg Genos' arms and arsenals. But even if you have no interest or experience on One and Murata's premier collaboration, Dangan Tenshi Fan Club is still an excellent, humorous one-shot that looks really pretty.
If you read manga at all, especially shonen manga, I recommend checking both one-shots. For me personally, they serve as an excellent digest to a partnership that could possibly grow to be a defining one of this era. One-Punch Man is still ongoing and it seems like it will be for a long time. Let's just hope the duo will continue working together after their initial hit title, in the same vein to the older, equally brilliant, writer/illustrator pair Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obataâ currently also working on an ongoing serialization called Platinum End, probably gonna talk about it after it reaches a milestone in the narrative.
Internet Variety: Scare Pewdiepie First Impression
So, YouTube Red, the ad-free, not freeâand horribly named, considering the other crimson-colored tube out thereâvariant of YouTube launched yesterday and with it, a slew of original series starring the video sharing giant's biggest star. Scare Pewdiepie is one of said series, starring Felix Kjellberg, better known as, well, Pewdiepie. In a gesture of generosity (publication), the internet personality shared one episode from the show's first season for free in his personal channel (above). From that episode alone, the showâs future doesnât look very pretty.
Scare Pewdiepie is fairly easy to understand; the show stars Pewdiepie, and in it, he is scared. "This show takes what I already doâgetting scared of horror gamesâbut taking it to the next level, a really fucked up level," summed up the man himself. A quite precise summation, with two exceptions: he doesn't really do the whole get-scared-by-horror-games much nowadays (made a whole video talking about it, even), and the showâs not THAT fucked up, unfortunately.
Well, maybe the amount of cash flowing into the show is a bit fucked up. The preview episode shows Pewdiepie trapped inside an abandoned asylum, filled to the brim with actors and props and special effects. Here, he started chained into a bed on an empty room and must navigate his way out by making a certain doctor sign his release paper. Backed with a narrative and a game-like editing aesthetics, it's obvious that the show is made up to feel like a proper horror video game. In fact, the level (the showâs term for episode) is modeled after Outlast, a 2013 Canadian horror game. Scare Pewdiepie's main premise of a real-life reenactment of a video game is pretty interesting and could potentially make an amazing show.
It's such a huge shame the show downright ditches that potential. One of the biggest disappointment of the show is the fact that instead of letting Kjellberg explore and figure things out himself, the show opts to simply walk him through every props and every scare by placing him inside an autonomous wheelchair. The story is then reduced to a linear mediocrity as Pewdiepie simply sit and watch things unfold in front of him, reacting as needed. What's more annoying, to fill up screen time, the show conjures a very fake meta-narrative about the shooting process of the whole thing. Before the main scaring portion, Pewdiepie got picked up in his house by the main producer. Then, he's introduced to a bodyguard, one to keep him safe from a former staff-turned-stalker from a former episode. At the end of the recording, the bodyguard himself turned obsessive and ends up getting fired. Very stupid, very corny, very unnecessary.
Lots of other stuffs could be nitpicked about the show: how the gigantic camera set strapped on Pewdiepie's chest ruined the showâs immersion, how the whole thing felt rehearsed judging by the lukewarm responses of the YouTube personality (save for the last part where he obviously donât know where to go, probably the best part of the episode), how ridiculously easy the only puzzle in the episode is âthe answer is LITERALLY spelled for you, and how obviously the show lazily relies on Pewdiepie's scared act instead of actually creating a complex, elaborate plot. Above it all, it's frustrating to see a dumb execution of a potentially smart concept; maybe take out the acting and get some other players for real human interactions and shoot for a solid real-life horror game variety. If this is the standard set by YouTube Red's flagship title, then the subscription service is a long way from success.
Among the millions of people that watched last year's sensational superhero anime One-Punch Man exists a smaller subset of people that read the manga on Young Jump, lustrously illustrated by Yusuke Murata of Eyeshield 21 fame. Among those people, there's another smaller subset of readers that read the original One-Punch Man manga by author One. However, I believe that while every component in One-Punch's equation definitely contributed to its massive successâMurata's beautiful, ultra-detailed art, Madhouse's quality adaptationâat the heart of it all is the humorous-yet-touching story by the original author, One. This year, another one of One's lesser known manga lands an anime adaptation. The title is Mob Psycho 100 and it's probably superior to One-Punch Man in several aspects.
Mob Psycho 100, like the majority of One's works (check his previous collaboration with Yusuke Murata, Dangan Tenshi Fan Club), deals largely with superheroes/superpowers. Kageyama Shigeo, nicknamed Mob, is your regular bowl-haired middle-schooler possessing an extremely powerfulâalthough latentâpsychic power. Despite being an Esper, Mob seems to be very indifferent with his powers, deeming it unnecessary for his life and ambition to be popular with girls. The turbulence in Mob's daily life begins when he starts working for Reigen Arataka, owner of the "Talk About Spirits Agency" and a self-proclaimed psychic. Reigen is a crafty businessman with a silver tongue that uses Mob's psychic abilities to deal with actual spirits in his line of work; otherwise, he make do with his various skills which includes massaging the 'evil spirits' out of people's back.
As a protagonist, Mob gives off a similar vibe to One-Punch's Saitama. The comparison is inevitable, given both character's plain visual and uncaring attitude âalso the sense of overpoweredness they give. However, the impetus to that attitude comes from different places. If Saitama's comes from his unwavering determination and world view, Mob's indifference comes from his naivete. It's not uncalled for though, the guy is an eighth grader. More than his indifference, another one of Mob's defining trait is his intentional lack of emotional display. After an incident where his latent psychic power went out of controlâharming his younger brother in the processâMob suppressed his emotion to prevent it from happening ever again.
This matter of emotion becomes the central theme of Mob Psycho 100. The 100 in the title comes from Mob's 'Psycho Meter', a measurement of Mob's emotional level; when it reaches 100, Mob's latent power will detonate in a single surge of emotion. The story of Mob Psycho 100 revolves around the various supernatural incidents surrounding Mob and how it evokes a myriad of emotion in him. Intuitively you might think that the explosion results from Mob's anger but fortunately, it encompasses a lot more than that. The first 100% is caused by anger, but after that comes other stuffs like gratitude and sadness. The journey of Mob's emotion is the hook of the series and usually a story arc concluded with an explosion. It's the hallmark sequence of the series often accompanied by an awesome spread courtesy of One.
The reason a lot of people opt out One's original version of One-Punch Man is his below-average art. Unfortunately, early chapters of Mob Psycho 100 suffers from the same problem so the series might be a little hard to pick up. However, they progressively got better (the fact that it's published properly on a magazine might contribute a lot to this improvement) to the point where it contribute to the enjoyment you get from the action sequences. But putting the art aside, Mob Psycho 100 carried each and every one's of One's usual charm: witty conversations, timely humorous retorts, and memorable characters.
Mob Psycho 100 is currently serializing in Weekly Shonen Sunday Web Comics with around 100 chapters on its back. The anime adaptation is slated for a 2016 release (teaser trailer above) and is produced by the animation studio Bones (Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Space Dandy). Unlike the Murata aesthetics used in One-Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100 will retain One's original visual style from the webcomic. If you loved One-Punch Man there's a high chance you'll feel the same for Mob, and I urge you at least put it on your next-to-watch/read list.
The Unlicensed Bible Game That Should Have Been Buried in a Desert: Urielâs Chasm Review
All of this started when a friend of mine gifted me a copy of Uriel's Chasm, one of the few games in Steam that has an 'Overwhelmingly Negative' predicate based on around 2600 user reviews. I have since completed the game (in approximately 30 minutes) and delved into a series of internet articles and reviews about the game and all of its oddities in order learn more about the game, but the more I do that the more I feel like I'm sucked into some sort of weird world where normal gaming logic doesn't apply. It is tempting to read too deeply into Uriel's Chasm and get lost in the multitude of interpretations and bizarre stories about the game, but it is also equally tempting to simply dismiss it as an atrocious game without taking a look at the context. Instead of doing those two things, I'm gonna explain the game as it is and let you decide what to think of it.
A fair warning, a lot of what I'm going to write in the following paragraphs will sound bizarre but believe me, it is an exact description of Uriel's Chasm.
Uriel's Chasm is a 2D shmup & platformer video game developed by Rail Slave Games for Steam. It was released late in 2014 and has since spawned 1 sequel, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here. The game, as far as I'm concerned, tells the very vague story about an intergalactic nun called Sister Tabitha who is sent into the edge of the universe to investigate an orbital monastery called Enoch's hope. The game is divided into 4 small chapters, each having a different gameplay: chapter 1, 2, and 4 are the shmup part of the game, while chapter 3 is the sole platformer part.
However, the game also presents another angle to the narrative. In a somewhat meta twist, Uriel's Chasm also tells the story about two girls picking up Uriel's Chasm and playing it. A found-footage type video will pop out in between chapters showing two girls calling themselves "Shovelware Queens" and their impression of the game (spoiler: they called it shit at one point). This would also also a good time to point out that all of the cutscenes and videos in the game are unskippable and you can't pause or save anywhere in the game. Also, be careful not to press esc as it'll immediately throw you back to the main menu.
So let's get down to the nitty-gritty of each chapter. In the first one, you control a space fighter and shoots asteroids around you to acquire bible pieces to increase your faith. Your actions are limited by the amount of fuel and ammo you have, both are drops from the asteroids or the enemy that spawns from it. Getting hurt reduces your faith and increases the limit of faith you need to surpass to complete the chapter; be careful to not get hit by the floating giant jaw in the field as it will deteriorate your faith quicker than anything else. When you take a piece of the bible, a random verse will appear on screen for you. At some point, your faith will automatically increase when you stop moving giving you time to actually read the bible verses.
The second one, which I assume takes place inside the planet where the orbital monastery is in (before, you were floating in outer space), is a classic sidescrolling shmup where you play as Sister Tabitha herself, riding something that looks like a giant water tank. You need to get through robots, flying crosses, and grotesque plants to finally meet the boss of the chapter, which is a giant head that shoots stuffs at you. Here, Tabitha's hit box is only the small red heart with a cross on her chest, so finishing the chapter shouldn't be that hard.
After some more found-footage videos showing the "Shovelware Queens" dismay at the game, the third chapter begins. It's the most psychedelic chapter of the bunch where you control Tabitha and navigate through a deserted plains to search for 7 Jesus on a stake. To make things even trippier, the screen pulses with all sorts of color and rotates slowly. Every time you found the object that you're looking for, a random bible verse flashes on the screen. It seems to be a randomized verse in case you were wondering, I encountered a verse more than once in my playthrough. The chapter is the simplest one, but it also could take the longest time if you got lost in the area.
If you're adept at shmups, you'll finish the previous chapters at around 20 minutes or so. The fourth and final one is more of a boss fight rather than a chapter, where once again the game shifts into a top-down shmup. At this point you shouldn't even be fazed on the fact that the boss is a giant space giraffe head that looks like he (she? it?) just smoked weed. It's a pretty basic shmup part that ends relatively quickly. When you finally beat the chapter, Uriel's Chasm abruptly switched into a plain 'the end' scene with a song playing in the background. I'm gonna save you the time: this screen is the actual end of the game. I waited for around 5 minutes just to see if there's more after the song ends and there's absolutely nothing else. Press escape to reset the game.
So what does all of this mean? Well some people values Uriel's Chasm as a spot-on homage to shovelwares of the past, while some other applaud it for the metaphysical experience it apparently offers. A lot of users at Steam (around 2000 of them) pointed out the elephant in the room and said that it could just be a horrible game. Me though, I'll just take it in the same vein as I take abstract arts: I absolutely don't get it but apparently there are those who valued them highly, so I assume thereâs something there. If anything, the process of researching and writing about it has given me new insights about shovelware and such; I would welcome anyone that want to gift me a copy of other Rail Slave Games' title any day.
Procedurally Generated Poops: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth Review
There is a perfectly good reason why a lot of people, including me, spent hundreds of hours on The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (henceforth referred as TBoI) and it's not because of the fact that we can tell people we're literally playing a game about shooting shits up (although that is sorta awesome, too). It all boils down to the fact that beneath all of the gores, bloods, and feces, is a perfectly amazing top-down arcade shooter that packs a whole lot of great gaming experience. Let me tell you more about it.
First thing first let's get the narrative out of the way. In a very loose adaptation of the biblical epic about Isaac and his father Abraham, TBoI is a game about a small boy named Isaac and his religious mother. When you boot the game up, it will start with a one-minute cut scene that sums up the story nicely. Isaac lived alone with his mother and things were perfectly fine until one day, Isaac's Mom heard voices from above. In short, the voices told Isaac's Mom to kill his son as a proof of his faithfulness. Isaac, fearing for his life found an trapdoor to his basement and fled inside; TBoI takes place in this weird-ass basement of his and saw Isaac making his way to the end (spoiler alert: it's not really a basement) while facing monsters from his deepest, darkest fears. They include but not limited to: chunks of meat, a poop, giant spiders, flies, rats, and maggots, a mummy, his mom, his mom's heart, himself(?), a ghost, Satan, and mega Satan. Everything, basically.
These abominations are placed together inside a string of 'chapters', each representing a part of Isaac's basement. One chapter is either one or two floors worth of a procedurally generated composition of small rooms. Aside from random rooms, there's several special rooms that will appear every floor such as treasure rooms and boss rooms. TBoI is a rogue-like game where death is permanent; in TBoI, you repeatedly play a defined set of chapters, grabbing a randomized set of items on each attempt trying to reach the end and unlock new things for your next run. A complete run lasts around 30-60 minutes.
The first sense of wonder you will get from playing TBoI comes from the simple joy of discovery. The game boasts around 500 items, each giving Isaac a different buff/nerf/effect/skill and changing his looks. Only around 1/2th of them are available at first, but a lot of them unlock quite fast. The sheer amount and silliness of the items keeps you entertained enough to get you to the point where you start to be invested in seriously playing the game and unlocking every single secret it conceals. There are hundreds of secrets that can be unlocked in TBoI, some of them requires you to simply beat the game a number of times, but a lot of them involves fulfilling seemingly random conditions. What's more, the game also refrain from telling you what you just unlocked. All it does is flash a card with a single image and a sentence about the secret; some are obvious ('You unlocked Cain' unlocks a character called Cain), but some of are cryptic enough you have to play a bit more to finally see ('The angels await!!!' definitely has something to do with angels, but what exactly?). The game intentionally left a lot of things for the players to learn themselves.
And it is exactly the learning experience that lies in the core of TBoI's charm. While the core gameplay is relatively simple (you move, you shoot, you bomb, and you grab items; the game explains this quite extensively as seen on the picture above) there are a huge amount of small mechanics about the game's multitude of elements (enemies, items, rooms). You know how a devil room appears randomly at the end of a boss fight? Well actually, the odds of it spawning drops to zero when you got hurt on a boss fight. You know those spikes that sometimes surround an item so you need to get hurt to grab it? You can walk diagonally and pass them without damage. About The Book of Revelation, did you know that it increases the chance of a floor boss turning into a Horseman of Apocalypse?
These seemingly small knowledge will be essential as you try to beat the procedurally generated dungeon, radically evolving the way you play the game. In this RNG-governed game, knowledge is king. For the first few hours of the game, you'll learn that picking items makes you stronger, thus increasing your chance to win. Another 20 hours though, you'll learn to NOT pick several items because of their run-ruining synergy. Take, for example an item called Monstro's Lung turn your tears into a charge shot that scatters bullet in a shotgun-like fashion. Another item called Polyphemus sacrifices your shooting rate for a giant tear that hurts 9999999x as much. Both are perfectly fine offensive-oriented items that will help you massively. The idea of taking both to create a spread-fire shotgun of giant tears is tempting, but seasoned player will know that it will also take literally forever to charge. Learning, and actually applying these knowledge into practice yields a significant increase in your success rate and that feel so fucking good.
Fast forward another 20 hours and you'll find yourself determined to unlock the elusive '1001%' achievement that requires you to unlock absolutely everything in the game. After you learned every single trick in the book, you'll learn a whole another book of tricks. You'll learn to break the games using a two-item synergy. You'll learn to generate an infinite money by hurting yourself. You'll learn to FUCKBLOAT. You'll meet those runs that's just too good to be true, and you'll meet those that felt like the game just hates you for no reason. Most importantly though, you'll never stop craving for just. One. More. Run.
TBoI is a gift that never stops giving. Numerically speaking, the combination of items and runs you can play numbers in the billions and the latest DLC, The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, only contributes further to that number by adding a new game mode called Greed Mode and Daily Challenges complete with a leaderboard for bragging purposes. If that's not enough for you, TBoI's community is large and savvy enough to create numerous mods to the game, like this Undertale mod. The next planned expansion, Afterbirth+ also plans to add an official modding support so who knows what the game will turn into. In the meantime though, you might want to pick up Afterbirth and join us in this excellent tears-bullet hell.
Jokes aside, the guy really outdid himself in The Revenant with the sheer amount of things that he went through: getting mowed down by a bear, munching down an animal setting his own throat on fire, swimming in a freezing river, falling down a cliff, sleeping naked INSIDE a dead horse, and getting one of his ear bitten off. Who knows what will he do next if he fails to get his hands on the Oscar yet again this year.
We probably won't get to see that though, DiCaprio's strong, Oscar-worthy performance is one of the major reasons to watch The Revenant. Directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu of Birdman Fame, The Revenant is a semi-biographical feature retelling the tale of Hugh Glass, a fur trapper left to die in the wilderness by his comrade Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) after a grizzly bear attack on a pelt delivery trip. It's a simple revenge story that sees Glass' struggle to survive and avenge not only himself, but also his son that Fitz murdered.
Around 5 people walked out when I went to watch The Revenant last Saturday. Itâs not a big surprise; the film is a tricky one to get. With a fairly uncomplicated plot, it banks everything on its screenplay and cinematography, masterfully woven with the backdrop of the cold yet picturesque American wilderness. The end result is a grand film with a lot of beautiful stills and memorable sequences, but appreciating that isn't something a regular moviegoer is guaranteed to be capable in. The Revenant trades the smarts for the heart, and it found considerable success thanks to DiCaprio and Hardy's excellent acts.
There are two particular scenes that leave me with a deep impression: the first one comes early in the movie where Leo was relentlessly assaulted by a grizzly bear, and the second one was halfway into it where he spends the night inside the carcass of a horse he hollowed himself. They are two profound scenes that shows the pure, unadulterated brutality nature can be.
Two things about those scenes: one, they both don't directly connects to the main plot about Hugh Glass' revenge and two, both of them comes in the first half of the movie. Indeed the only thing that The Revenant falls short in is selling it's core premise about revenge. Sure, there's multiple flashback/dream sequence about the spiritual connection/history of Glass and his family and yes, the final duel between him and Fitzgerald is pretty gruesome, but they will always pale in comparison to the cold, unforgiving, beautiful wilderness. Take away those stuffs and you'll still get a fine movie about one man's desperate struggle to survive in the face of nature's worst behavior; the stuffs about revenge in the second half of The Revenant feels like an anticlimactic, almost empty finale.
But maybe that is it. Maybe, just maybe, that's exactly what The Revenant is trying to say: there's nothing to gain from revenge; it only ends in a bitter, anticlimactic void. Or more more likely, this is just me reading too much into the only fault of an otherwise brilliant feature, and possibly Leo's biggest shot by far at the Oscar.
Superhero stories never gets old. Following the superhero craze that hit Hollywood for the last couple of years, a lot of superhero-themed works emerge both in the Japanese manga industry and the Korean webcomic industry. Starting its serialization in 2014, IRON Shin's Sidekicks is one of the more unconventional work that twists the superhero genre in interesting ways, to say the least.
Sidekicksâ setting is nothing new. In its fictional world, there exist people who possess superhuman physiques and abilities. These people, called Superblics would ultimately end up into one of the two camps: heroes and villains. Those who choose to be on the side of justice can't directly be heroes though, they will first be placed in the apprenticeship of a veteran hero. Sidekicks, as you might guess from the title, focuses its story on the journey of these sidekicks.
Perhaps in an attempt to direct reader's attention and empathy to the sidekicks, author IRON Shin purposefully give the heroes (save a select few) very unpleasant personalities. However, the attempt failed in two ways: the heroes are too much of a jerk; the sidekicks aren't virtuous enough. When a story arc about defecting sidekick arrives, readers are already too apathetic already. Some unpleasantries might there for a reason; Darkslug, the mentor of the two protagonists slash the strongest hero in town seems to intentionally slave-drive his sidekicks as an extreme training method; another hero character is a former sidekick to Darkslug and she's the more likable one of the bunch.Â
The first season of Sidekicks centers on the Triad Prana, a set of three superpowers that gave birth to modern Superblics. It was told that in the past, the heroes control all three pranas, but following a betrayal from two of the most powerful heroes of the era, one of them falls into the dark side. The villain of the season, Matheos, is the surviving one of the two heroes and is hell-bent on gaining control of the three prana. All pretty basic stuffs.
For an American-inspired superhero story, Sidekicks feels very lacking in color. Most heroes don the classic spandex-and-a-cape look, but the palette for the costumes feels overwhelmingly bland. Two of the three main characters in the story (Darkslug and Blackhound) each wears a plain black suit with almost no ornaments. Dream Girl, the poster heroine of the series, opts a minimalist pastel pink one piece that looks more like a swimsuit than a hero costume. Character designs in Sidekicks are lackluster at its best and downright lazy at its worst. To be very positive, at least it establishes a consistent look thatâs in line with the dark tone of the story.
One of Sidekicksâ peculiarity that new readers may found off-putting is the use of 3d techniques for its visuals. It's not always visible, but the majority of character arts in the webcomic is created by cell-shading 3d models. At times this may not feel much but there are several scenes where the characters look very 3d and disconnected to the other visual elements. This may be also the reason behind the lack of details in the characters' costumes, since creating detailed 3d models takes a lot of time. Adding to this visual disjoint is a frequent use of digital image manipulation techniques such as digital paintbrushes and fractals to create special effects such as burning flames or energy beams. Sidekick's failure in delivering a consistent and coherent look throughout its chapters is its defining setback that may turn a lot of people off the most.
Sidekicks maintains a very high rating on the Line Webtoon service, and when you read the review up until this point you might wonder how is that possible. The reason might just be the few chapters at the end of the first season, that concludes the season pretty neatly by transferring Darkslug's power to our less-annoying heroine, Dream Girl. Season 1 of IRON Shin's Sidekick is a drawn-out, annoying set up for the proper superhero story that will be told from season 2 onward, but if superhero story is your thing, it might just be worth your time.
The Ending You Didnât See Coming: HakoMari 7 Review
After the 6th volume of Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria was published in January 2013, fans were faced with an excruciating wait for the finale of the cult hit. Two and a half years later, the last chapter of the mystery/romance/psychological series finally hit the shelves; it's everything you have ever wished for and more. The 7th volume of HakoMari finally puts the spotlight on the titular heroine Maria in a last bout with stalker/boyfriend/hero Kazuki, wrapping the series in a satisfying, blood-soaked, heartwarming conclusion.
The last time we last saw Maria on the epilogue of the Daiya arc, she was trading her entire memories of Kazuki to save Daiya from dying on the street. The 7th volume starts with a dialogue between Kazuki and 'O', the two opposing polar of Maria's box, Flawed Bliss. With Maria forgetting his existence, Kazuki decided to destroy her box from the inside, so down the rabbit hole he goes. From there on, we follow Kazuki's efforts to destroy Maria's box while trying to keep herself from being lost at the artificial, perfect happiness he's confronted with inside.
In between, Eiji Mikage finally recounts the genesis of Aya Otonashi, Maria's dangerously selfless alter ego. Apparently, she originated from the image of her half-sister with the same name, Aya Otonashi. The charismatic, almost divine figure left a huge impression during Maria Otonashi's childhood. When Aya was killed in a car crash on her 14th birthday, Maria was forever convinced that her sister's death was an intentional suicide meant to set a prophecy in motion; a prophecy that foretold Maria Otonashi's fate to replace Aya Otonashi on her mission to bring happiness to everyone in this world. The depiction of Aya and Maria's past is kept short, but it feels profound enough to serve as our heroine's backstory.
Meanwhile, Kazuki's portion of the novel amazingly digs deeper on the already well-explored time-repeating trope introduced in the first volume. Entering Maria's Flawed Bliss placed Kazuki in the endlessly repeating day he always wanted, with a confession of her previous crush, Kasumi Mogi, every single day. In an attempt to destroy Maria's box, our main character tries to ignore everything and searches for any kind of clues of Maria's whereabouts, all the while retaining his memories by suiciding in every single iteration. Minds were lost and despair was repeatedly met, but in the end, the love struck boy figured that the way to destroy the box is to deny any happiness it tries to offer. His happiness comes from the everyday life and every single person inside of it. Therefore, he decided to murder every single person in the artificial world, including his best friends and his family.
Keep in mind that this isn't a scenario where you can blow up the entire world using a giant robot a la Bokura No. This is a perfectly real scenario where you need to kill each and ever single person manually, resulting in a sequence depicting Kazuki's continuous effort to murder everyone in sight, one of Eiji Mikage masterpieces. From a single murder to mass food poisoning, arson, until finally resorting to a mindless chainsaw massacre, the progression (and degeneration) of Kazuki's mind and psyche is described ever-so-carefully and brilliantly. At its aftermath, our lovable high school student is reduced to a moving piece of meat with no functioning thought process from all the murders he committed. Pretty gruesome state to be in for a story's protagonist.
How does the series got concluded then? Eiji Mikage pushed the border of his imagination and presented to us the simplest, yet most unbelievable answer: for 400.000 iterations, Kazuki mindlessly called Maria's name and banged his hands against the wall of her apartment inside her box. In the end, Maria who had completely forgotten about Kazuki noticed the banging voice inside her head and finally reached out, entering her own box and reached closure with her past, freeing herself and Kazuki once-and-for-all.
None of the damage on our characters got undone, though. In the end, Kazuki is still left in his zombie-like state; Daiya is in comatose after his stabbing; Kokone and Haruaki's relationship was never mended; Mogi's still suffering from her truck accident. One of the charm in HakoMari's ending is the acceptance of every single damage of the characters' various psychotic episode has caused. However, they found closure in it. The epilogue of the series tells the character's peace with their past in a tear-jerking narration courtesy of Kazuki. The narration also fills in his progress in regaining his thoughts, with Maria at his side, from the time he barely can comprehend words until the time when he finally speaks Maria's name once again. Surprisingly, the straightforward ending provides a nice contrast to the complex plot lines of the first 6 volumes. It's the best ending you have never imagined before.
Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria has always been a cult hit, and most probably will stay so in the future. However, I hope the string of reviews that ends with this post will introduce new readers to the exceptional series. With a complex story line and genre-crossing narratives, it is hands down the best light novel that has ever come to my attention. I bet it will be the case for you too.
That Manga Youâve been Wanting to Read: Kingdom Review
When you have been reading manga for a while and finished a lot of series, you will find one or two curious titles that pique your interest in a certain manner. They will typically have around 400-500 chapters or more, meaning they've been serializing for almost a decade. There's also a good chance that they will also have a very high rating in manga database sites, so going by that, the series should be good. Weirdly enough though, you will find that you don't know a single person that has actually read them. Kingdom, a historical manga authored by Yasuhisa Hara is one of those titles that deserves more global fanfare and recognition than it currently has.
Around 450 years prior to the Three Kingdoms era, the land of China was enveloped in another long, albeit less-popular, years of war. This period, that saw seven states competing to be the first one that unifies the mainland, is often called the Warring States period. Blazing for around 250 years from 470 BC to 220 BC, the era concludes with a successful campaign by the Qin state that annexed all of Qin's 6 rival states and unified the Chinese empire for the first time. The epic told in Kingdom happened during this era of Qin's conquest. To be exact, Kingdom IS the story of Qin's conquest for the mainland.
Kingdom's story is told from the eyes of Shin, a war orphan that aspires to be the greatest war general in China along with his best friend, Hyou. Not far into the story, Hyou was killed in an assassination attempt as a body double to Ei Sei, the future king of Qin. Bound together by Hyou's death, Ei Sei and Shin become close comrades with a similar dream of greatness: one wishes to unify the entire Chinese empire under Qin's banner and rule over it as king, the other wishes to become a âgeneral of the heavensâ, the greatest war general in the history of China. Starting from then, both characters endures a life of blood baths, betrayals, and victories in order to realize their dreams.
Under the simple historical premise of the Chinese empire unification under Qin, Kingdom follows Shin's struggle to become a great war general. The arcs in the manga are mostly independent arcs, telling the event of a single skirmish with little to no interconnection to one another other than an identical set of character. However, Shin's development as a warrior is illustrated brilliantly from his first campaign as a footman to the massive-scale war as a leader of a 5000-man army. Growing along with Shin are his rag-tag Hi Shin infantry unit including a war orphan girl tactician, Karyo Ten, and the heir of a notorious assassin clan, Kyo Kai; each of these characters gets their own development subplot that's fleshed out really well.
The best thing about Kingdom though, is the war sequences drawn beautifully by Yasuhisa Hara. Movements in the manga always feel fluid and dynamic and the magnitude of war is communicated well through a detailed illustration of armies. Given Kingdomâs massive scale, battles are often depicted in a high-level, birds-eye abstraction. Tactical, almost chess-like strategic skirmishes replace your typical one-on-one battles prevalent in shounen mangas. Stratagems such as ambushes and war formations makes up for the lack of character power-ups. In the break between Shin's war arcs are Ei Sei's political arcs that tells a complex power struggle inside the Qin palace, along with the numerous intrigues and betrayal surrounding it. The tension of the story runs at an all-time high readers would struggle to put the manga down.
While the war arcs tend to look at the battle from a higher vantage point, it doesn't mean that individual skills are overlooked. The manga makes it a point to always illustrate how influential a single entity called general can be on the battlefield. Whether it's breaking through the vanguard unit of the enemy or simply providing a motivational rally, a general is a figure so important in a war that taking the head of one can simply end the skirmish. Throughout Shin's journey, he met various generals, both as a comrade and as an enemy he needs to slay. Each of these colorful band of characters thrown into the chaos of war are amazingly designed, giving a lasting impression; yet another thing that keeps you glued to the pages.
The title Kingdom possibly comes from the difficulty in choosing the title of a story with such a simple premise. The same applies to this review; what makes Kingdom so great is almost inexplicable because of how simple the story really is. In a nutshell, Kingdom is merely a fictionalized account of China's Warring States Period that is true to the source material so far. That's basically it. The thing is the execution of said material, both in the visual and narrative dimension is absolutely amazing. 400 chapters is a long read, you just have to trust people on this one and start reading Kingdom, one chapter at a time.
Your Latest Anterograde Amnesia Story: Okitegami Kyouko no Biboroku (Drama) Review
Detective dramas have always been a defining genre of the Japanese drama industry, much like the romance genre of its Korean counterpart. At least one detective story will pop out each drama season, with their own little twist in the true-and-tried formula in an attempt to stay fresh. Okitegami Kyouko Biboroku (The Memorandum of Okitegami Kyouko) is an entry from last year's fall drama season that managed to do so quite successfully. With an excellent casting and a great source material, it's a quirky detective story that's an absolute joy to watch.
Kakushidate Yakusuke (Masaki Okada) is a diligent young man cursed with extreme bad luck. Mistakenly suspected as a culprit in an incident during his latest job, he was forced to employ the service of a private detective to prove his innocence. This is when he met with Okitegami Kyouko (Aragaki Yui), a private detective nicknamed 'The Forgetful Detective'. The sobriquet comes from her anterograde amnesia, a medical condition that causes her memory to reset every single day. This bizarre trait guarantees the confidentiality of a case, but limits the investigation time to a day. In a case-of-the-week format, the drama follows the multiple cases encountered by the awkward couple: Yakusuke who falls in love deeper with his benefactor with every incident, and said benefactor Kyouko who forgets every single one of them.
The cases and the mysteries in Okitegami are rather light, sometimes even bordering on trivial. The cases presented in the 10-episode series range from a closed-room murder to a simple flash drive theft. Okitegami dabbles more a in simple, inconsequential brand of small mystery rather than a plot-heavy, serious one. Even its biggest puzzle, the identity and origin of the forgetful heroine, is left unsolved by the end of the series despite multiple allusions in some episodes. While it may be done to permit further developments of the drama franchise, this decision neatly wraps Okitegami as a light and humorous story with a heart.
Without a complex mystery as a hook, Okitegami Kyouko no Biboroku relies on its script to keep viewers entertained. The drama is adapted from the work of novelist NisiOisin, now most popularly known as the writer of the Monogatari series: a novel-turned-anime series that receives critical acclaim. Viewers of the Monogatari series should be familiar with Okitegami's trifling-yet-witty banter that's so entertaining to watch. Aside from the dialogues, NisiOisiN always had a special flair in describing the inner workings of the human mind. One sequence that leaves a lasting impression depicts Kyouko's train of deduction from her awakening in her room with a blank memory to the point he successfully figures everything out and go to work.
While we're on the topic of NisiOisiN and his works, it's interesting to point out that some visual cues used in the drama looks inspired by the Monogatari series produced by studio Shaft, most notably the various typographic stills that appears randomly throughout the scenes.
With all of its quirks, Okitegami may sometimes feel like a love story instead of a proper detective drama, but that's absolutely fine. Yakusuke's development from a man who curses his bad luck to a man that relishes each and every day, along with his evolving relationship with the forgetful detective is excellently written. To be able to create such strong developments in a story involving a character who practically resets her development in every episode is what makes the series so special.
Of course, this is all possible because of the cast's excellent acting. Aragaki Yui and Okada Masami in particular deliver very strong, emotional performances as leads. Their on-screen chemistry also felt so real; their past collaboration in courtroom drama Legal High might help them lot with this. If anything, it's a shame that the side characters doesn't get a bigger role in the story. Mitsuhiro Oikawa plays Kizunai Horo, the happy-go-lucky apartment owner/detective broker that employs Kyouko; Arioka Daiki from popular boy band Hey! Say! Jump plays the stoic informant Narikawa Nuru; Rio Uchida plays Makuma Makuru, waitress of the Apartment/Cafe Sandglass. The three characters are often played as one-dimensional characters for either comedic relief or convenient plot devices, but fortunately retains just enough charm and likability to be cared about.
Although it may not be the best of the genre, Okitegami Kyouko no Biboroku is a rare entry in the long list of detective dramas that actually makes you care about the characters and their relationships. It's a series filled with warm and fuzzy feelings (courtesy to the love line between the two main characters) that takes almost no effort to enjoy. With the loose ends regarding Kyouko's past, I can only wish for the sequel.
There's Always A Catch (?): Cheese in The Trap 1st Season Review
With an ongoing, well-received drama adaptation produced by TvN, Cheese in The Trap is probably the most buzzed about webcomic at the moment. Not all of the ongoing hype can be attributed to the drama though; since it started back in 2010, this romance/drama webcomic, written and illustrated by soonkki, has acquired quite a large following. In fact, the popularity of the original source material may be more responsible to the adaptation's than the other way around. Quite an amazing feat for a relatively new franchise, but it's a well-deserved one.
Hong Seol, an awfully insecure, overthinking sophomore student returns to college after taking a break for one semester. To her surprise, she once again crosses path with Yoo Jung, a handsome, rich, smart, and all-around likable upperclassman who is alluded to be responsible for Seol's one semester withdraw from campus life. The entanglement between these two college students and the people around them, also their past affairs that causes Seol's withdraw is the focal point that drives the narrative in Cheese in The Trap; it's a romance/drama series with a touch of suspense slipped every now and then.
The title 'Cheese in The Trap' makes no sense at first, but it's actually very aptly chosen. The dynamic of the two contrasting character is the series main attraction. Yoo Jung, extremely charming in public, is hinted at having a twisted real persona; one that distressed Seol's enough to make her quit college for a while. Throughout the events of the series though, Jung seems to have turn over a new leaf, even making a move to Seol. However, Jung's inner thoughts and motivation is cleverly left out from the narrative, leaving the overthinking Seol (and the readers) in a conundrum. On one hand, she's clearly pleased with the favors she received but on the other hand, her insecurity and past experiences with the guy told them that this could not be all there is; there is always a catch in the end. All of these kindness are nothing but a cheese in a trap.
While the series maintains its premier mystery throughout its chapters extremely well, it often falls short in choosing believable plot devices. In a setting so firmly rooted to reality, the characters often feels a tad bit too melodramatic sometimes. Whether it's Nam Juyeon, a girl who's overly jealous about Seol's closeness to Jung that she blatantly and visibly tries to ruin her life, or Younggon, a womanizer jerk who turn into Seol's stalker just he heard that the girl likes him, some characters feels a little bit too extreme (and sometimes downright annoying) to believe. It's a trait shared by Korean romance/drama story and probably speaks a lot about the taste of Korean viewers/readers.
Despite the hyperbolic melodrama, some plot point in the story actually felt relatable. Season 1 of the webcomic primarily serves as an prelude, introducing characters via minor skirmishes; the advancement of the actual plot of the story felt almost nonexistent, making the pacing feels really sluggish. It, however, ends (even though somewhat awkwardly) with the best two chapters about Seol's struggle with a group assignment that ends with her getting a D even though she painstakingly worked on the assignment alone to cope with her team's absence. The story told in these last two chapters is almost a little bit too real, especially when you're a college student yourself. It also introduces another conflict down the story about the abnormal expectation put into Seol as the smart, eldest child in her family.
Cheese in The Trap is ultimately a good series that have its own share of problem. Reading season 1 alone, you may find yourself not invested enough in the characters to actually follow it to its conclusion without a significant amount of willpower. But if anything, it presents enough poignant scenes and interactions that you can see the potential it holds. It also maintains its main premise consistently enough. If melodrama if your thing you definitely want to read this one; if not, it's nothing that you can't afford to miss.
