So the past couple of days I’ve been playing Sniper Elite V2 instead of the occasional Starcraft II that I play and I have to say that I love the game. The game feels and plays very different from the conventional shooters I’m used to playing. As the title suggests, it’s all about sniping and you being the sniper, sneaking around on the map, knowing where the enemy is, plotting their paths and then taking them out without them knowing where you shot from. I finished the game on normal and I’m definitely going to play the game on the hard difficulty too. Haven’t really tried co-op or the multiplayer yet, but after I’ve done those three, I’ll be writing a review of the game. It’s been awesome so far!

The new season also brings along a new OP and ED. The opening is done very well, it’s a bit more dramatic than the ones from the first season. The song itself is amazing of course. (To the Beginning by Kalafina) It is a real treat to listen to and suits the theme of the opening itself a lot.

The ending is nothing I’m less happy about though, the song is beautiful, but there’s nothing more to the ending than just a bunch of images of Irisviel and Kirutsugu and I think they could have done a bit more to make the ending something interesting. It does show a bit of back story the two characters though and I guess that’s a positive side.

There’s not much else for me to say about the season, I’m not going into detail about every single episode, but I’ll be writing a review on both the first and the second season as soon as the series has concluded and I’ll be talking about every single aspect of the anime in detail there. For now, I’ll follow the series and I have no doubts that it will be a very good one.

Marvel has had an amazing lineup for the past two years(Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America) and this movie will be the continuation and the big project that combines all these movies together as one major film. All the main characters from the Marvel movies will be present(with a slight change of cast for the Hulk) and they will be fighting together in a movie of, dare I say, epic proportions. The cast is amazing, the effort and production value is definitely there and now all I’m hoping for is the story to be amazing as well.

“want to see” score: 9/10

From what the trailer shows, this movie seems to be an interesting spin-off to the Snow White story. I’m not entirely sure what to expect from the storyline itself, it could range from anything between utter shit to really good, but the production value of the movie itself seems to be superb, so I’ll definitely watch this when it gets released in the cinema.

“want to see” score: 7/10

So the new season of the monogatari series has started. Nisemonogatari is the sequel to Bakemonogatari. It pretty much continues on where Bakemonogatari stopped. I’m not entirely sure if there’s a time-skip between the two, but after seeing the first episode, it doesn’t seem to have one.

I have to say that I’m already liking Nisemonogatari. The quality of the series is not on the same level as the Blu-ray of Bakemonogatari, but that is to be expected. I’m expecting the Blu-ray of it to be drop dead gorgeous though. Nisemonogatari still has that same type of setting, the same feeling and style as the previous anime and it’s exactly what I want from it. A continuation of the story without fucking up the atmosphere of the series. Everything is pretty much the same, but the story continues in its crazy supernatural, but hilarious way. One thing that also surprised me is the animation quality, movements were smooth and everything looked amazing. You can see that Shaft really tried to give (at least) the first episode the production value that the entire series deserves.

Nisemonogatari airs every Saturday at 23:59 Japanese time.

I’ve been very busy with school, because I had test week and after that I’ve been working on certain projects, so that’s what has kept me busy. I’m working with a friend on web design and web development and it was taking most of my time in, but I’ll be back with new posts soon, so fear not!

Anyways, if you want to see some of the stuff I’ve been working on, you can always check DailyGib, it’s a gaming news/review site that I write for.

I like the song a lot and it’s definitely one you should at least listen to, to see if you like it yourself. It’s definitely the best song T-ARA has released up til now and I hope that they’ll keep releasing amazing songs like these.

(On a side note: Ham Eunjung is really hot)

Synopsis

After a series of missile strikes hit Japan, a guy names Takizawa Akira finds himself naked, without memories and in possession of a revolver and a phone in the middle of Washington D.C. There he meets a girl called Morimi Saki and they travel to Japan where Akira tries to retrace his steps and memories. He eventually finds out that his phone gives him access to ten billion yen and he can use the money to make extraordinary things happen.

Story

Higashi no Eden is a typical mystery anime. The story starts with a guy that finds himself with only a phone and a gun, and no memories of who he is or what he is doing. He has to slowly puzzle his entire life together and find out what this mysterious phone of his does and why he has access to ten billion yen. The answers are spoon-fed throughout the series and the viewer will get to know more and more about what’s happening over the course of the series.

The mystery surrounding Akira himself is not the only mysterious thing happening. There are a couple of subplots in the story that manage to raise some questions, and I really like how they’ve done that. Sooner or later you’ll be wondering why the missile attacks happened, why there were no wounded during the attack, who the Supporter really is and more questions like that, which will stay unanswered until the last few episodes. (some of them are still not answered when the series ended)

This is all done very well and manage to keep the suspense in the series, even when there is barely any action and just a bit of romance (which they’ve handled quite well). The story is definitely one that will keep you interested, asking for questions and wanting to watch the next episode as soon as possible.

The only big problem I have with the anime, which has already been fixed, but is still worth nothing, is that the anime feels incomplete. The series doesn’t feel like it has properly ended after the twelve episodes and you’re left with a lot of questions and possible things that could happen. Production I.G has already solved this by releasing two more movies. I haven’t seen them yet, but they should have a better ending to the story than the anime does.

Characters

The character development is probably the weakest part of Higashi no Eden, there are too many characters and just too little time to develop any of them, so the only characters that end up having some proper development are Akira and Saki, the two main characters. Thankfully, they managed to do that properly, the chemistry between the overly helpful Akira and the more timid Saki is a lot of fun to watch, because they end up being in situations where Akira is doing some crazy things and Saki just follows him, and doesn’t know what to do.

There are a lot more characters in the story itself that they could have fleshed out by giving them more of a backstory or having them interact more with the main storyline. This is especially true with the johnny killer (seen in the image above), I was really interested in her character, because of the mystery surrounding her (and the fact that she kills people) and I really hope I’ll see her back in the movie.

Production

Production I.G did a very good job with the production of this series. The characters are animated pretty well and the background have a painting-like look that fit the anime and they manages to give some life to the surroundings. One thing I don’t really like, is the 3D effects they’ve tried to add in the series, I’m not a big fan of them and while they are animated properly, it’s a bit too distracting in my opinion.

The music in this series hasn’t been all that impressive. With the exception of the opening song by Oasis, the music used is too subtle to really notice. They add a bit of suspense to the series, but that’s about it, there is not a song or a certain type of background music that immediately makes you think of Higashi no Eden.

Conclusion

Higashi no Eden is an anime that manages to stay interesting with very little action and a lot of talking and dialogue. The mystery in the entire series is well done, though they probably could have answered the mysteries a bit better. Animation wise, Higashi no Eden is really good, with the smooth animations they have and the awesome looking backgrounds. The only thing it’s really lacking is some proper music that can be remembered and linked to the series, but even with those little flaws, the series is a fun one to watch. (albeit a bit incomplete, but we have the two movies to continue the story)

7,8/10

The first thing that I’ve noticed in the game is the amount of detail put in the graphics, the world looks amazingly detailed, textures are rich (with a few exceptions) and the magic abilities are just gorgeous. The only thing that Bethesda could have done better is the character models, they just don’t look as good as everything else.

The gameplay and combat is amazing in Skyrim. There are too many things you can do in the game and even now, after I’ve put in twenty hours, I’m still nowhere near done. I have a crazy amount of places left to explore, quests to fulfill and abilities to train. There’s just no end to it!
The combat system is also very satisfying if you’re playing with bows and magical abilities. Shooting fireballs at people and seeing them burn makes you feel so powerful at times. If you don’t like the in-your-face fireball shooting style, you can always opt for sneaking with a bow or daggers for the stealthy kill, or too just charge into an enemy to hit them with your two-handed weapon. There are many ways to play this game and Bethesda gives you the freedom to decide which style you’d like to use. The only thing I do have an issue with is that when you fight someone with a weapon, it’ll become difficult at times to know if you’ve actually hit them, or if you’re just swinging the weapon around like an idiot, but that’s a minor issue for me, so I don’t really mind.

Anyways, for everyone that haven’t tried or played Skyrim yet. It’s a game worth playing, especially if you’ve played Oblivion or Morrowind. There is so much to do in this game and it’ll keep you busy for atleast 40 hours and probably a lot more if you decide to explore every nook and cranny the game has to offer.

Synopsis

It’s the 16th of December and with the Christmas holidays coming up, the S.O.S. Brigade decides to hold a Christmas party. A couple of days after the preparations, Kyon wakes up in a world where everything is different. The entire S.O.S. Brigade doesn’t exist and everyone’s memories seems to have been changed. Haruhi and Koizumi have disappeared, Mikuru doesn’t know him and Nagato is the only member in the literature club. The only one that still remembers everything from the old world is Kyon he tries to find out what actually happened.

Story

The Story in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is very much meant for fans of the series, people who already have seen the anime and want more. If you try to watch this movie with no prior knowledge of anything that happens in the world of Suzumiya Haruhi, you’ll just end up being confused and missing what half the movie is actually about.

In terms of story line, the movie does what the anime lacked. It has a proper pace at which the story moves, without any unnecessary content to fill up extra time that is left. Not that there is any extra time left, since the movie already is a massive 164 minutes. The good thing is that even with the movie being such a long one, the story manages to keep me interested throughout most of the movie. It started a bit slow, but after 20 minutes, it manages to up the pace and deliver with all the good things the Suzumiya Haruhi brings.

The entire story is seen from Kyon’s view of everything, even more so than in Melancholy, every little decision or thought behind what is happening, is coming from Kyon himself and the narration in the movie is even more present than in the anime. This causes the viewer to see things from mostly his perspective and it draws them into thinking what they would do in his place, having the chance to change timelines based your own judgment and deciding what is actually the world you want to be in and whether it’s worth it to change the world you’re in right now.

I’m probably already saying more than I should have, but the entire thought process behind the story is astonishing and it manages to keep the viewer thinking, instead of showing you massive action sequences with a lot of explosions. It shows that another way to keep people watching, entertained and engaged in a movie, is by giving them a complex, emotional story.

Characters

The characters in Disappearance are the same  as the ones in Melancholy. However, even without any additional characters, it still manages to add a new layer on each characters, because the world has changed, people have disappeared and others just seem completely different. Nagato Yuki turned out to be more of a normal person, albeit a very shy one, with a huge (implied) crush on Kyon, and they managed to change her from a normally, silent, calculating alien robot into a cute and shy girl that just wants to hang out with Kyon and read books.

The only other character with real development is Kyon, the entire movie revolves around him and you rarely actually see or hear something from all the other characters in the movie. Haruhi herself is absent throughout 60% of the movie, same with Koizumi and Asahina, so the main development is the relationship between Kyon and Yuki, and what Kyon is doing himself to try and fix what’s happening.

Animation

There is no doubt about it that Kyoto Animation spent a lot of time and money working on the animation of this movie. The scenes are very crisp and clear, every single frame has the same quality as the one before and the attention to detail is just amazing. All the characters are drawn with an amount of details you rare, if ever see in anime. The backgrounds are done in a style that they are blurred if they’re not focused on, but they don’t even skimp out on the details with the background images, even when they are blurred. This causes the movie to seem like it’s recorded like a real camera.

One thing that’s also very prominent in the movie, but I’m not sure whether I like it or not, is that in a lot of the scenes, they have a certain color scheme that is very prominent in that scene itself. It causes the movie to have different feelings during different parts of the movie and I’m not sure if it’s distracting or good.

Sound

The voice acting in Disappearance is exactly what you would expect from KyoAni. Their use of top-notch voice actors combined with the attention to subtle sounds, like switches being pressed, shuffling of the feet and cars passing add another layer of reality to it.

One thing that is very apparent in the movie for me is the lack of music, it is only played at certain moments, most of them being the more exciting parts of the story, and besides those moments there is no music at all. The only sounds you’ll have are the conversations, the background noise and ambient noise. If forces the viewer to focus more on the narrator and I like that decision a lot. There’s no need in a movie like this to fill moments with unnecessary music when there’s already enough to pay attention to.

Conclusion

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya does what the second season of Melancholy should have done, which is to give its viewers a very good story line that manages to captivate their viewers and make them think. The story, animation and sound are amazing, but it lacks a bit of explanation for people who have not yet seen anything in the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

8,5/10