Gamer--freakz

Opening Songs
OP 1 - That Is Our Miracle (μ's)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Always No Matter What (μ's)

Genre: Drama

Episodes: 13



And here it is folks. The conclusive 2nd season to the "Love Live!" anime. I never thought that they would do it, but they really did it. This is as conclusive as it gets, and I must say, for a franchise like this, it did pretty damn well. With all the singing, dancing and girls with overwhelming personalities, the 2nd season of "Love Live!" is entertaining from start to finish. While it won't persuade those who generally dislike this particular genre of anime into loving it, it'll easily please those who already are into this sort of thing. Of course, this is a must watch for fans of "μ's", and if you grow attached to these girls throughout 2 seasons worth of episodes (like I did), this is one season that'll end with a nice bang. This is a no brainer, but when the producers decided to capture the feel of franchises like "K-on!" or "Idolm@ster" with "Love Live!", they did it with flying colors.

More cute outfits! More songs and MVs!

With "Love Live!", you should already know what to expect with the opening and ending themes. The opening theme is "That Is Our Miracle" by "μ's", which of course, composes of all 9 seiyuus of all the 9 school idols in the group. Its a idol-ish song with almost nothing to criticize about when it comes to capturing the feel of the show...but that's pretty much it. Its just like any other "Love Live!" (or for that fact, "Idolm@ster") opening theme, nothing too special here. The ending theme "Always No Matter What", also by "μ's", is slightly better IMO. Its more innocent in a way, and the girls sound WAY more motivated singing this one.



Rating: 8.0/10



There's nothing much to say here about season 2. If you enjoyed season 1, season 2 is sure to sweep you away. The girls are back, and better than ever. With a proper purpose and proper rivals this time around, there's a lot more meaning to the plot this time around. Some of the characters get more character development, leading us to like more about said character (though I must say, not everyone gets equal screen time or arcs for proper character development). The CG dance sequences are still well done, and with the introduction of more songs, we get to see more of these dance sequences. The slice of life factor and the dance/song/singing segments still remain strong, but the vast improvement for this second season is the story (as mentioned above). To make things even better, towards the end, the anime gets even better when the story shapes up, delivering a wonderful emotional moment that is full of impact.

Come on Umi! We all want to see you in that sexy dress!

After the events of the first season, "μ's" did not manage to qualify for "Love Live!", the event that every school idol group wants to shoot for. With that in mind, Honoka has stepped up to become the school council president, while Eri and Nozomi stepped down. Kotori and Umi along with Honoka now make up the student council. With her popularity shoots, this should prove no problem for Honoka, and life went on as usual...until Hanayo picked up some important news. Apparently, "Love Live!" was so popular that it spawned a second coming, and this time, "μ's" was definitely NOT stepping down like before. However, with the new responsibility of being school council president, Honoka thinks that this might be too much for her. Fortunately, with the persuasion of her friends, she agreed to take part, and to devote her entire self into making "μ's" a success for "Love Live!".



The "Love Live! School Idol Project" franchise was a pretty good run overall. I doubt even after the conclusion of the anime, the franchise would come to a close, but for now, it seems like the anime ends here. We've got to see some really good stuff with these 9 girls from "μ's", but who knows, maybe in the future, we'll get to see more. Until then, its time to leave it to the games and media department. Maybe we'll get to see these girls again in a movie or something, I know I'll love for that to happen.


Peace.

Ruin Sentinels Yahim, Alessia, Ricce
HP: 2330 (x 3)
Skills: Crescent Sweep, Sweep Combo*, Halberd Slam, Leaping Strike*, Shield Toss*, Spinner
Souls: 33000

Difficulty: 3.5/5
Deaths: 7



Now that you've finally beaten all the trials that stand before you, you can proceed to the lair of the first soul lord. "The Lost Bastille", its a jail for undead prisoners, sound familiar? Anyway, proceed through this dreaded prison of knights and zombies, and you'll finally come across a fog gate. What do you do? Of course you enter it, but when you do, you see 3 health bars appear at the bottom of your screen. You know it more than anything; your fate has come.

Come on, 1v1 me bro.

The Ruin Sentinels Yahim, Alessia and Ricce are some of the meanest bosses around during the early game. They gang up on you relentlessly. You fight only one of them at first, but that's really just a test to get you accustomed to their attacks, before they 2v1 you like assholes. They're certainly not Ornstein and Smough level, but they're pretty much up there when it comes to killing you together. You'll need lots of wits, perseverance and experience to win this fight. If you're a newcomer to the souls series, this fight can be hell.



Crescent Sweep - He performs a quick slash with a wide arc. Easily blocked with a decent shield.

Sweep Combo* - He attacks once, either vertically or horizontally, then follows up with a Crescent Sweep. More preferable to dodge than to block.

Halberd Slam - He smashes down on you with his halberd, doing massive damage and causing a lot of stamina loss if blocked.

Leaping Strike - He jumps in on you from a distance, closing the gap and smashing down on the ground.

Spinner - All Sentinels start spinning together at tops and come at you. Easily blocked.



The Ruin Sentinels are a horrible bunch to fight against from afar. I suggest being pure melee for this fight. When you first enter the fog door, you'll be faced with a single sentinel first. This is just to make sure you LEARN what the sentinels can do, and believe me, even against a single sentinel, a novice would get obliterated. To make things worse, on your first fight with the first sentinel, you are only fighting on a small platform, with little room for maneuvers. If you make a single mistake, you'll drop down below, fight against the other 2 sentinels, and you'll most definitely lose the battle.

Only 1 to go!

One of its most frequently used attacks is Crescent Sweep, a single horizontal slash that is easily blocked, but covers a huge arc. Its easily avoided because it has decent start up time, and you might even get a few hits in. Next, he has Sweep Combo, a two hit combo that will always end with a Crescent Sweep. It might be slightly tricky to block, but its not that hard to dodge. You can still sneak a few hits in after the attack. Halberd Slam is a single strike that'll most likely break your guard and leave you in a stagger state. Though I must say, since it has a long recovery time, you'll have lots of opportunities to hit him after the attack, so just side step for an easy dodge.


The next attack is one that'll only happen if you're on the lower floor. Leaping Strike, like what its name suggests, is a leaping attack that lets a sentinel close the gap between you. It does a lot of stamina damage on block (most likely staggering you), but its easily dodged since you can see him coming from quite a mile away, unless you're focused on another sentinel. The final attack is one that the sentinels will only use on the lower floors. They will spin towards you in synchro, dealing decent damage, but this attack is easily blocked. Treat it as free time for you to heal, because they have ridiculously long recovery times for this attack.


As mentioned earlier, take the early 1v1 as a test for you to familiarize yourself with the Sentinel's attacks. Just go for the small windows of opportunity to attack him after each one of HIS attacks, and slowly whittle him down. Just make sure not to get hit to the lower floors. When you finally kill it, the other 2 sentinels will start to come in on you. You have some time before they jump up to that platform to come for you. They will come one at a time, but obviously, its going to be pretty hard to fight TWO sentinels on top of that tiny platform, so what you can is wait for one of them to come up, get a few hits on him. When the second sentinel comes up, drop down to the lower floors and prepare to face them both. At LEAST you did some damage to the 2nd sentinel to give yourself a small head start.

Get me the f**k out of this bitch!

When you're down below, you need to face two sentinels at once. Hopefully you did some damage to one of them, so you won't need to go that extra mile. The same rule for ganking bosses apply here, you'll need to kite them so that BOTH of them are in your field of vision. You'll need to have eyes on both bosses, and only go for attacks when BOTH of them are recovering (sound familiar? Ornstein and Smough say hi). You won't want to stay too far from then both though, because if they alternate between gap closing and trying to murder you up close, it can get confusing to manage. Good times to hit them are when one sentinel just used a Leaping Strike on you, while the other is trying to run to you all the way from the other side of the map.


Another would be when both just used their Spinner attacks, since those have ridiculously long recoveries. Also, take note that when both of them use Shield Toss, they both lose their shields for the remainder of the fight, which makes them a lot easier to take down. Anyway, just keep tickling away at their health bars until one of them goes down, at that point, the other should be A LOT more manageable. Defeating them gives 33000 souls, a nice amount at this point of the game.



Next time, we take on the first Soul Lord.



Peace.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - DARAKENA (Iori Nomizu)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Pleasure Theory (Coffin Princess)

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance

Episodes: 12




Many animes feel like JRPGs, so much so that its not even funny or special anymore. "Tears To Tiara" did it first for me, and then many followed soon after. And then we have "Hitusgi No Chaika", another one of those animes that feels A LOT like a traditional JRPG story. Fortunately for us, the story IS pretty good. The characters are likable, they have decent personality to them, there are a suitable amount of action scenes, and to be fair, it does a good job at joking around when the time is right. There's a lot to like about "Hitsugi No Chaika", even if it does feel like a very traditional JRPG story at times, and for its cause, I do appreciate it for that. I seriously wouldn't have it any other way, and as it stands, its a brilliant adventure full of action, exploration, bickering, quirkiness and character bonding. It may not have ended off in the best of notes, but at least a second season is coming for that.

Meet the killer siblings, Toru and Akari.

The opening song is "DARAKENA" by Iori Nomizu. Fortunately for me, I'm a sucker for Iori Nomizu (I love most of her songs, especially the "Kore Wa Zombie Desuka" opening themes), and "DARAKENA" is one of her stronger songs IMO. There's a lot of tension in it, more so than any songs that she sang previously, which works fine for "Hitsugi No Chaika". The ending theme is "Pleasure Theory" by Coffin Princess (which assume consists of certain seiyuus int he anime), and as an ending theme, its pretty great. Its fast, it has a dark, techno beat that makes it rather catchy. Definitely not your usual slow, boring ending theme.



Rating: 8.0/10



Its simple, "Hitsugi No Chaika" starts off strong, and doesn't let up. The plot is interesting enough from the get go, and only becomes more interesting as the characters start to reveal more about themselves. One good thing about this anime is that there are only 3 main characters, instead of an overblown cast, it waters itself down to only these 3. Well, from an anime that's only 12 episodes long, character development is going to be one of its downfalls, but since "Hitsugi No Chaika" only talks about this 3 most of the time, they feel..."important" enough. To top if off, 2 of these 3 characters are really "powerful" characters right off the get-go (not a fan of Chaika when she first turns up). Of course, there are other characters, like Gilette's group, which serves as a rival team to Toru's group, though they aren't really too focused on, which kind of turns them somewhat trivial. Though I do have a feeling that they'll play a far stronger part in season 2 (I mean, come on). Everything else works well, conversations between the 2 siblings are funny, the action is fairly appealing (though Frederica spoils most fights if she takes part)...everything feels rightfully in place here.

Yeap...there's going to be a bunch of monster killing in this one.

Toru Acura is a 20 year old retired soldier (a little too young to be retired, no?), and he spends his days wasting away in the woods to look for food to feed himself and his younger sister, Akari, who are living together. One day while in the woods, he runs into a silver haired girl, who calls herself Chaika. Toru finds this girl peculiar, as she speaks in a weird manner. She asks for directions, but they are both attacked by a unicorn, a powerful monster known for its relentless attacks. Toru is a saboteur, an old warrior archetype who specializes in assassinations and their loyalty to their masters. On the spot, Chaika hired Toru to protect her and fight the unicorn. They managed to defeat it, and Toru brought Chaika to town, where she treated him a meal as his reward. His sister soon joins them, and Chaika decides to hire them both for her cause...to retrieve the body parts of the old demon king, who turns out to be her father.


"Hitsugi No Chaika" is a brilliant adventure overall with a lot to see. For a party of 3 (4 later on), Toru sure has quite a few things to look forward to, and so do us viewers. With the unsettling ending and the upcoming second season, there's really nothing more that I can say. The excitement within me is building up. this is going to be a superb sequel.



Peace.

On a side note, it would be lame to put the same characters from my "Badass Villain" post in here, even though the characters that I stated there ARE my favorite characters from "Akuma No Riddle" and "Black Bullet", it would just be in bad taste to put the same characters in this post.


Akuma No Riddle

Being sexy gets you points.

Other than Nio (who is completely awesome and unpredictable) or Haruki (who's probably the prettiest character in the cast), there's only one other character that really gets me hyped up. Yes, that's Isuke. Despite not being the prettiest, she's the sexiest of the cast, and easily the most devious one out of all the girls (not counting Nio, she's crazy). I expected her to actually be one of the final trials that Tohkaku and Haru had to face, but she got taken down before the stupid cyborg girl (Isuke should have been 2nd to last to go down IMO).


Isuke likes to get down and dirty with things fast. Before the assassination even got officially announced, she tried to go for Haru right off the bat. Overpowering Tohkaku and beating her ass down, we already see how capable of an assassin she is. As a normal girl, she's your typical delinquent, sleeping through classes and not giving a rat's ass about anything else. She wants to finish her mission more than ever, to go back to her parents (who are both gay, which is totally cool to me by the way).


Yes, she's adopted, but that doesn't mean she does not love her dads. In the end, she did the one thing that nobody else bothered to try. Team up to overwhelm both Tohkaku and Haru. She chose to cooperate with Shinya, with minimum success, she was planning to betray her right from the get-go. She almost had it, and believe me, she would have gotten it if she didn't take her time to kill Haru. Like all the other girls, she failed her assassination, but to me, she was the closest to killing Haru. In the end we get to see her enjoying life with her daddies. Happy ending either way.



Black Bullet

How often do I like main characters?

Kagetane is freaking amazing, and he's easily my favorite character in "Black Bullet". However, since we already starred him in a "villains" post not too long ago, I'll have to bring in my main man, Satomi Rentarou. For a main character, Satomi is pretty amazing, especially since the writers didn't go too overboard with him to make him overly badass or cocky ("Mondaiji"'s Izayoi, "Hagura Yusha"'s Akatsuki). I like him for what he is. He may be another kind of a typical shounen hero, but he does so much more.


Satomi acts like a shounen hero, but he's a little bit darker than most. Most heroes want to protect everything, but Satomi knows that in his current world, that's not possible. He wants to save the cursed children, who are discriminated against by the world. Saving is an over exaggeration, he just wants to change the world's perspective about them. They ARE the savior for humanity against the Gastrea, Satomi just wants to give the cursed children a place in this world, something that they so deserve. This is PERFECTLY normal and since Satomi is one of the only ones thinking like that, he gets my respect.


Satomi's fighting style is pretty cool, to me anyways. I have a soft spot for proficient fist fighters, and Satomi's martial arts are pretty impressive. The tendo marital arts style is pretty cool, especially when Satomi uses it with his Varanium limbs, WHICH are also plenty badass. He's a cyborg, he's gotta fight like one. He has his handy pistol of course, but that's pretty much only used to land finishing blows against the Gastrea. He is also a capable leader, something we don't really see much in main characters.




Dog X Scissors

S and M?

This one is pretty obvious. I mean, there are plenty of hilarious and wacky characters in "Dog X Scissors"...but seriously, who the hell can keep up with the powerhouse of a character known as Natsuno Kirihime? She's funny, she's pretty, she knows how to crack up her own sick jokes, she a sadist and overall, she's a really strong character, personality wise. Sure living under her as a sad dog that speaks his own mind can be painful, but if Natsuno were my sadistic room mate, I'd be down with it.


Natsuno proves to be a force to be reckoned with for the normal human being. Nobody can stand up to her sadistic personality, unless you're a masochist like Hiiragi. Then she has the scissors of doom, which gets Kazuhito every time. Also, being a young woman of at least 20 years of age (they never clarified how old she was, I think), she's pretty flat chested, and that only opens us up for more "petanko" jokes, which work fairly well against her.


Despite being quite a quirky character at times, she can also be quite dangerous when serious. She knows martial arts to some degree, being able to fight off some pretty proficient fighters with that pair of scissors. Also proving to be a good counselor, she manages to cool off her would be rivals in romance and writing, even recruiting them under her wing. Finally, her drunk shenanigans in the final episode only made me love her more. Foreshadowing much?




Peace.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Click (ClariS)
OP 2 - Step (ClariS)

Ending Songs
*Too many to list

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Slice of life

Episodes: 20



There was really nothing much to be hyped out of "Nisekoi" if you ask me. Sure it was one of the most popular love/comedy manga out there during the time (if you ask me, it probably still is), but when all is said and done, its still what it is. A high school romance comedy harem, nothing more, nothing less. Getting me hyped out about a proper romance aspect really got me going for the most part, and the show does start off strong, but then slowly trails into the path of all generic harems as it proceeds into its later stages. While it overall shows potential of being a really good romance anime, it probably only flourishes on later in the story. Aka, season one doesn't particularly have anything too strong or convincing in the romance section, and if I had to guess, its mostly buildup and character development for a stronger second season. This is just a guess though, I've never read the manga. But if you're here looking for the usual high school romance comedy harem thing, then look no further, "Nisekoi" delivers wonderfully on that end, and then some.

Yep, the girls are pretty hot in this one.

First off, this is one of those shows with way too many damn ending themes (they change ending themes every couple of episodes or so), so I'll just cover the opening songs here. Both opening themes are by ClariS. The first one is "Click", and in my opinion, its the better of the two, even though they both sound pretty similar. "Click" has more of a simplistic feel, which pretty much suits the laid back style and atmosphere of this anime. As I mentioned, "Step", the 2nd opening, sounds pretty similar to "Click", though that one has a more fantasy feel to it. I like both, but "Click" feels more suited for "Nisekoi".



Rating: 7.5/10



As mentioned earlier, if you're looking for another good spirited high school romance comedy harem kind of show, "Nisekoi" will fit right into your book no problem. There's potential room for some really good romance here, but season 1 just feels like its for buildup and character development. In that department, yes, "Nisekoi" does very well. Characters are developed respectably well throughout the anime, and you'll feel that many of the characters change for the better later on (especially Chitoge. Holy SHIT I hated her f**king guts during the anime's first few episodes). The main story about Raku's pendant and long lost love is very interesting early on, but it slowly fades away...and its mentioned a lot less later on (much to my disappointment). Other than that, there's a lot of cliche rom-com moments, but these are handled decently well. Still....I do wonder. When are romance animes going to stop relying on the typical dense high school kid that just can't take a f**king clue about the feelings of girls? Jesus, Raku is like typical high school romance comedy main character number 752.

Whatup.

Ichijo Raku is one hell of a boss...in his home. He is the son of a Japanese Yakuza boss, and because of that, all the gangsters that live in his home call him young master. He longs for a normal school life, but because of the gangsters that are always around him, he never really gets close to any girls in his previous schools. However, he had a memory from his childhood, where a girl that he used to like gave him a pendant before she left. He would have a locked pendant, while the girl would have a key to unlock it, and together they would discover what was inside. Little did he know though, that during his first day, he gets jumped on by a blonde girl transfer student known as Chitoge. He lost his pendant because of that, and he gets Chitoge to look for it with him. The two despised each other, and despite this, they worked together to look for Raku's pendant. All is well when they decided to never speak to one another ever again, but then their parents have something else to say. As a peace treaty between the mafia and the Yakuza, they are to have their heirs date one another. And guess who is the daughter of the Mafia's boss? Chitoge and Raku could only stare at each other as their parents have grins the size of moons.


"Nisekoi" works well with its own themes. The love story of Ichijo's past would have been hella interesting, but too bad we don't get to see or hear much of it in this (supposedly) first season. Without relying too heavily on fan service, "Nisekoi" stands on its own with its own rom-com situations and stereotypical characters. Its pretty good, but I'm sure as hell it could have been better.


Peace.

Before we begin, here's the usual. 


Spoilers for the following anime:

Black Bullet 
Kill La Kill
To Aru Kagaku No Railgun S 
Noragami 
Akuma No Riddle 



Also, lots of female villains today, so....yeah! Yay for girl power I guess.

Sadistic, pyromaniac!

5. Shizuri Mugino
From: To Aru Kagaku No Railgun S


First up on today's list is Shizuri Mugino, infamous 4th ranked esper in academy city from the "To Aru Kagaku No Railgun S" series. While she looks like a fabulous light show at first glance, there's way more to Mugino than you think.


Mugino is the leader of ITEM, an underground organization that takes part in operations for the more shady parts of academy city. That just tells you one thing about her right off the bat...Mugino is by no means a good person. Taking underground deals and doing dirty work is part of ITEM's code, that just means that Mugino and her people are never nice. Especially when she takes the job to guard the tree diagram from a certain scientific railgun.


When Mikoto tries to stop the level 6 shift experiment by destroying facilities, she was ambushed by Mugino, who sent her team to guard the premises. After defeating Frenda, Mugino appears to teach Mikoto a real lesson. She apparently shows no remorse to Mikoto's concerns about the clone experiments, and states that academy city's dark side is nothing to be trifled with. She's sadistic as hell, she loves a good fight, and most of all, she detests how Mikoto is the 3rd strongest esper in the city. She tests that logic with a good, old fashioned beatdown, though she never did catch Mikoto. Mind you, Mikoto didn't win, she just "managed to get away", she never truly fought against Mugino. If the 2 really went head to head, I'd put my money on Mugino, just saying.

Do not take that hand....

4. Nora
From: Noragami


Next up in 4th place today is Nora, the wandering shinki with plenty of gods as her master, from "Noragami". While Nora didn't really play too much of a part in the show until later on, she's still quite the bitch (I'll be frank here).


Nora was just straight out created to be hated, that's how I see it. From her first appearance though, she didn't seem all too bad because at that point, she wanted to replace Yukine, who was a complete asshole during that part of the show. However, when Yukine reconciled with Yato, you can see that Nora wasn't really pleased. She was insistent that she would be a better sword....and what better way than to manipulate Rabo, the god of calamity?


However, she only makes the dick move later on. When Hiyori was alone WITHOUT Yato or Yukine, Nora approached her, summoning her demonic shadow underlings to attack her. Even in spirit form, Hiroyi could not defend herself, and she fell victim to her shenanigans. You know the rest, Hiyori's memories got stolen away, Rabo challenged Yato, blah blah blah. To make things worse, Nora DESTROYED Hiyori's memories during the actual fight. A real bitch to the end, this girl. Too bad she's still alive though, she'll be up to no good once more if a new season pops up.

Evil...evil at its finest.

3. Nio Hashiri
From: Akuma No Riddle


3rd place villain today goes to Nio Hashiri, the two faced, deadly as heck assassin loli girl from "Akuma No Riddle". As cute as she looks up front, she's really just another scheming, twisted girl on the inside working for a bigger evil.


Nio was f**ked up since the start, and we all know it. Her very first appearance already showed that she had what it takes to be an assassin. She showed no emotion towards her target, no matter how weak/frail/naive she was. She was probably scheming to take down Haru from the start, just that she left her priorities to everyone else. She was directly under the wing of the chairperson in the school, and it can be said that she was the co-orchestrator of all the events that took place in class black.


Nio usually stood at the back for most of the assassination attempts by her classmates. Everyone would go to her to confirm their wishes, because she was directly under the chairperson. She acts like she's not "one of the bad guys" for the majority of the anime, she just gives advice to others, tries to cheer them up, or simply wants to hang out with Haru. It all just a ruse. When every single assassin made their move and got expelled, she started her advance. When Tohkaku tried to kill Haru, she came in, disguised as a fake Tohkaku, and tried to screw with Haru's mind. While it almost worked out, she was inevitable defeated by Tohkaku. She was revealed to be a member of the Kuzunoha clan, an infamous assassin bloodline that uses illusions on their victims, but it doesn't matter. She survived at the end to tell the tale, but who knows if its the last of her antics?

I love this guy.

2. Hiruko Kagetane
From: Black Bullet


This guy takes 2nd place today. His name is Hiruko Kagetane, the crazy masked man with a different outlook for the world of "Black Bullet". He's badass, and you won't want to mess with him.


Kagetane is what we like to call a villain from first sight. From the very moment you see him, YOU KNOW he is going to be a villain, and a badass one at that. He kicks Satomi's ass, he says that they'll meet again, and then he disappears. He later shows up during a meeting of initiators and civil officers, only to blackmail Seitenshi, cast a shroud of doubt on everyone in the room AND kill off a bunch of civil officers as well, showcasing the difference in strength. Just from that scene, I realized, I freaking love this guy.


Kagetane has an initiator as well, his daughter, a cursed child, Hiruko Kohina, a little sadistic girl who wields two swords. Kagetane was a survivor of an old war, and ended up with his entire body being plated up with varanium. He claims to have seen hell, he has seen how the world works now, and wants to change it like Satomi does, albeit using a more vicious and more cruel method. He asks Satomi to join his cause, but is rejected multiple times...yet Kagetane still believes that he'll manage to convince Satomi one day as he continues to unfold the many truths of the corrupt world. While he ends up killing many civil officers and cursed children, he is defeated by Satomi. While he was thought to be dead, he comes back many episodes later to lend his aid to Satomi. What is this man after? We don't know, and that only makes him more amazing.

You know what they say, the cuter the girl, the deadlier she is. Nui is the epitome of both being cute and deadly.

1. Harime Nui
From: Kill La Kill


There are very few girls who creep me the f**k out (Gasai Yuno takes number 1), so when one of them actually comes by, it leaves a lasting impression. Harime Nui from "Kill La Kill" takes the number 1 spot on today's villain list, and with good reason.


Nui is just all butterflies, rainbows, ribbons and frilly dresses....but that's only how she looks. She's actually a cruel, deadly, merciless, sadistic, two faced bitch that's out to make people suffer like no other. She's just so...well done, that's what makes her scary. She ALWAYS keeps a smile on her face and speaks with her incredibly high pitched voice (GJ Yukari Tamura), like she's kidding around, even when dealing with the most intense of situations. She's the killer of Matoi Isshin, Ryuko's father, and wields the second half of her scissors blade.


In battle, Nui is a beast, being able to wreck the living shit out of pre-buff Ryuko, and even her "beast form" as well. It turns out that she's an entire being made out of life fibers, just like Ryuko. She's the one responsible for all the living life fibers, and also responsible for Ragyo's Shinra Kotetsu, the ultimate clothing. Not to mention that she gets super, super, SUPER F**KING SCARY if she decides to go batshit insane. Yeah, a cute, happy go lucky girl turning into a demonic murderer psychopath is not a fun thing to watch, no no no. Nui is easily one of the scariest anime girls I've seen in years.




Peace.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Black Bullet (Fripside)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Tokohana (Nagi Yanagi)

Genre: Action, Mystery, Science Fiction

Episodes: 12



Trying something new won't hurt, and it surely pleases me when I watch an anime that tries something new WHILE making it awesome as hell. While we've seen plenty of cliches with high school students beating down on monsters or having little girls with special powers kicking other people's asses, "Black Bullet" still feels surprisingly fresh. With rather bleak themes such as prejudice impressions, human experimentation, mass murders and other inhumane shit, "Black Bullet" manages to put up a rather disturbing front. Mix in a world of big, badass monsters (that can be quite disturbing to watch a human transform from) with can only be defeated by certain special teams, along with a post apocalyptic setting where the rich and poor are treated very differently...you get a pretty awesome show. If you like action, endearing characters, a bleak world, or any of these mixed together, "Black Bullet" will be a captivating experience, I assure it.

Thing's aren't going so good in this world.

Since this is "Dengeki Bunko" title, "Black Bullet" has some pretty amazing songs (don't ask me why, just look at "Index", "SAO', "Accel World", "DRRR!"....all of them have some badass opening/ending themes). The opening theme is the anime title, "Black Bullet", and its by Fripside. You all know I love the shit out of Fripside, and while "Black Bullet" does sound a bit different than most of their other songs (it sounds a little bit like "Guren No Yumiya"), its still pretty damn catchy, while remaining some of that synthy awesomeness. The ending theme is "Tokohana" by Nagi Yanagi. Even though she usually does slow songs, "Tokohana" is decently paced and sounds powerful, even for her.



Rating: 8.5/10



I really enjoyed "Black Bullet". The constant fast pacing of the show always keeps me on my toes, and trust me, there WILL be action in almost every episode. Fight scenes are intense and exciting. While Enju and Rentarou are a powerful duo, there are rarely moments where they will overpower an enemy significantly, making the battles worthwhile to watch. To top it off, the characters are simply wonderful, but in a different way. They're not super lovely, super kawai, or sexy beyond hell. In fact, its not even about their personalities, its about their character development throughout the show. Because of the bleak world and constant emphasis on prejudism, you WILL feel for the characters, especially the main protagonists, Rentarou and Enju. It's hard to not care for them, and I found myself silently rooting for their successes throughout the show. Yet, despite all this bleakness, "Black Bullet" still manages to remain comical and routine in many segments, even giving Rentarou his mini harem at times.

Kagetane does not give a shit.

The story stars a world where monsters known as the Gastrea roam around the world. Gastrea are like a virus, whoever comes into contact into one, becomes one. Because of mankind's inexperience with the Gastrea, many have fallen to their grasp. Slowly but surely though, mankind fought back, and created obelisks to shield whatever remaining cities they had from the Gastrea. To fight the Gastrea, cursed children were born, little girls that had the Gastrea virus within them and could CONTROL them. They utilized this to fight the other Gastreas. As a pair engagement, every cursed child had to have a civil officer, and they would work together to fight other Gastrea. Satomi Rentarou is one such civil officer, he along with his initiator, Enju (a cursed child), take on jobs for the Tendo agency. One particular case had them deal with a strange man, Hiruko Kagetane, who seemed to have an initiator of his own. Hiruko is insanely powerful, and declares war on the current state of the world, devastating dozens of pairs with his single appearance. He seems to have his eye on Satomi...what in the world is he planning?


Its a shame that "Black Bullet" only had 12 episodes, because I really wanted it to go on. There was so much that could have been done to make it even MORE badass, which it already is. Here's hoping there's enough light novel content for a second season, because this might be one of my favorite shows this year already. If Rentarou and Enju get to shine again...I'll be there. I won't miss it for the world.


Peace.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Monochrome (Dancing Dolls)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Kimi Ga Ireba (Haruka Chisuga, Aoi Yuki, Saori Hayami)

Genre: Action, Comedy, Supernatural

Episodes: 12




Remember "Soul Eater"? It was a really badass school anime that focused on combat, with meisters and weapons that worked together, making the ultimate duo that could take down even the strongest of foes. Combine that with kind of a slap stick atmosphere with school life, girls, grades, social standings and you get one of the most addicting shounen anime, ever. Now, throw that most of that out of the window, and amplify the school life factor and the slap stick factor by 10, then make all the main characters girls. That's "Soul Eater Not!" for you. Think of it as a very simplified and peaceful version of the original "Soul Eater", only this time we throw in the moe factor. For fans of the series, this might be a passable experience, with plenty of cameos and throwbacks to the original. If you're a newcomer, I do suggest watching the original before jumping into this one, but if you just want another chummy, easy go experience with a mostly female cast, "Soul Eater Not!" has plenty of attempts to win you over.

Ladies and gentlemen, your main characters!

"Monochrome" by Dancing Dolls is the opening theme, and believe it or not, its not as bad as it looks. For a moe anime, I expected a moe opening theme. Apparently not, because "Monochrome" feels like its something straight out of Claris (they disbanded, RIP to them). Its not incredibly cutesy, instead is elegant and nice to listen to. The ending theme "Kimi Ga Ireba" by the 3 seiyuus of the 3 main characters, and sad to say, that's typical ending material, its nothing to write home about. Its a slow tempo song that's pretty much a ballad.



Rating: 7.0/10




Its pretty much just "Soul Eater" with all the slapstick in the world. Nothing to write home about, most of the show is just 3 pretty girls fooling around, enjoying life, doing "girly" stuff. Admittedly, the show caught my attention early on with all the cameos from the original series, and the 3 girls seemed pretty well fleshed out and diverse enough for me. A sleepy headed girl, a dense, indecisive main character, and a classy, tsundere princess like character. These 3 seemed to go well together, and I was ready to spend 12 episodes with them. Sadly though, while the beginning and ending arcs were decent, the middle episodes were kind of boring. There was also a lack of NEW interesting characters (I wasn't too drawn to Akane and Clay, or any of the other new girls). The action scenes are few and scarce, but they were good. They packed the old "Soul Eater" style of frantic-ness and style. THESE, were a blast to watch.

ONE bowl of noodles please, for all 3 of us.

The story stars Tsugumi as its protagonist, a regular girl living a regular life...until she discovers that her leg transformed into a halberd. Quickly realizing that she is a weapon, she is enrolled into Death City, a city with a prestigious academy that trains meisters and weapons, destined warriors that will become powerful enough to save the world. Of course, poor old Tsugumi is just a regular girl, and her coping with all this is pretty hard. She has a pretty rough start and gets discouraged, how could a mere girl like herself suddenly become a weapon powerful enough to be fit of a meister? She was on the verge of giving up, but used Maka (the protagonist of the original) as motivation to go on. On her first day, she meets two meisters, Tabane and Anya, that could potentially become her partner. Luck would have it that the 3 of them even stayed in the same room! So begins the super regular life of 3 very different girls in a very irregular environment.


So that's that for "Soul Eater Not!", a super moe/slapstick prequel spinoff of the original "Soul Eater" series. Fans who don't mind the sudden change of pace might enjoy themselves a little here, with the regular cameos of characters from the original. Newcomers might find this to be a subtle entrypoint to the franchise, though watching the original is still highly recommended (even if it didn't follow the manga, it was pretty good). As long as you're prepared for the simplicity of just having 3 girls doing stuff together like best friends, you'll be fine going in on this one.



Peace.

Gamespot Score: n/a

My Score: 7.5


(+) Pros: - Gorgeous 3D anime style visuals, - Fantastic character creation, - Decently good story for a MMORPG, - Fun and addictive action based combat system with many elements, - Hunting for loot and rare equipment can be exciting, - Plenty of likable characters and NPCs, Great boss battles.

(-) Cons: - Lots of restrictions for "free to play" players, - Slow progression, - Gets very grindy very quickly.


Gameplay time: -

And so here it comes. The critically acclaimed "Phantasy Star Online 2", one of the most anticipated MMORPGs for many players around the world. Unfortunately for the western audience, Sega hasn't announced any sort of confirmation (sorry for rubbing it in, I'll be rooting for you guys), but somehow, Playpark managed to get the okay from Sega to release it over here in the SEA region. I'm not a fan of Playpark and how they manage their MMORPGs, but this is "Phantasy Star Online 2" we're talking about! No matter what, I had to give it a spin. So I did, I hit the maximum level cap (during the time of this review), and played as much as I could. While I can safely say that the game is fun, its not really all that its hyped out to be. Its a solid MMORPG, but it has its flaws...and most of these stem from the original "Phantasy Star" games. If you're fine with older "Phantasy Star" games, you'll be fine going into this one. If you're not, then expect the same problems.



Arks is a space organization meant to fight against the Darkers, a hostile alien species that evolves from devouring foreign life forms. Such is the way of life, Darkers will consume all, eventually becoming the master race that will threaten all of existence. Of course, humanity isn't going to take this lying down, thus, Arks was formed. Stationed in many parts in the galaxy, the story now takes part in one of the many Arks fleets, as a bunch of new Arks recruits have arrived to join in on the fun. You are one such individual, and on your very first mission, you are accompanied by fellow newcomer Afin, a newman ranger. Together, you both venture to the grasslands planet Naberius, only to be attacked by Darkers. After witnessing their true power, you must now lend your assistance to Arksm as a special new ability awakens inside you.

Yeah, this looks pretty good.

Before you start "PSO 2" you're already going to notice one thing if you're an anime fan. This game looks delicious. Yes, if you're a fan of anime styles graphics, "PSO 2" is going to grip you nicely with its enchanting looks, and its not going to let go. Beautiful character models with well animated features such as movement, facial expressions and physics. The game is amazing to look at, especially your character, no matter who you play. Hell, even some of the well customized CAST look freaking badass, and yes, a female CAST isn't as bad as you think (some manage to look cute as hell). Cutscenes make everything better, and rest assured, the game's story has plenty of those.


The environments may not look as lush (you've got your standard forest map, ice map, volcano map, desert map...standard "Phantasy Star" settings), but the monsters and bosses do. You've got a rather decent variety here, birds, yetis, rolling armadillos, gorillas and even freaking elephants. Sure, the game does follow a trend of previous "Phantasy Star" games where they will repeat and reuse enemy models in future levels by just giving them a pallet swap, but it doesn't happen AS often in "PSO 2". Of course, the bosses look menacing as hell, even the first one (hi Rockbear).

You can now create your own cute and adorable robot!

Character creation is one thing you can't f**k up in MMORPGs, and luckily, "PSO 2" does a fantastic job, even if some of the good stuff is locked away in the pay to play version. While most of these features can be available in other MMORPGs, this is practically the first game that allows me to create my own ANIME styled character in an MMORPG, a LEGIT one (not with games like "Fiesta" or "Ragnarok", "PSO 2" actually manages to make your character not look like a chibi). You get to choose from 3 races from the get go, Human, Newman (the game's interpretation of elves) and CAST (mechs, it doesn't get cooler than that). Within there, you get to choose from 3 main combat classes, Hunter, Ranger, or Force, more on this later. 


The game manages to replicate your character in CG for cuts cenes, so that's a plus. Oh yeah, "PSO 2" has a decent story, one that actually gets you to care through cut scenes. It feels like a solo release on its own because of this, instead of having you to interact with NPCs and read all of their dialogue, cut scenes carry the story of "PSO 2", just like in a good old RPG. You'll actually care about the characters and story, though at this point for the SEA version, it isn't quite complete yet (there is more episodic content in Japan's version of the game right now).

Big dragon...let's go.

I mentioned this before in many of my MMORPG reviews. If your combat sucks, the game won't last for long. Fortunately, "PSO 2"'s combat is pretty solid, and while its similar to most games in its franchise, its a lot more fine tuned here. As usual, the combat is action based, so no clicking on an enemy to watch an animation play out. Here, you attack and move on your own, you need to dodge attacks, enemies can dodge your attacks, there is no auto lock on, everything here, you need to do yourself. In that aspect, the game excels, because it sure doesn't hold your hand. While the game doesn't necessarily punish you too much for dieing, you definitely WILL die while learning the game, because well, it can be hard.


Enemies, including normal monsters, can do a considerable amount of damage already, and if you do play alone, things can get sticky quickly ESPECIALLY if you're a beginner. Thankfully, the game throws in AI partners for you just in case you didn't start the game with friends, while they won't be NEARLY as helpful as a human ally, they can keep up by providing you with the additional support that you will need. The game splits into 3 primary classes, which you can further improve later on with sub class bonuses and passive skills. 

Yeah, get off me this instant!

A hunter fights close range, primarily using swords, partisans and wired lances (that make you feel like a character from Shingeki No Kyojin). A ranger is the ranged DPS provider for the team, fighting with rifles and rocket launchers. A force is self explanatory, they are the primary mage/support class, wielding staves and decks, they can dish out all sorts of magical damage or heal the team. A mixture of these for your team will be perfect, but certain classes do some things better than the others. Like how hunters are good for hitting fast enemies and rangers/force are stupidly good versus bosses. Oh yeah, bosses are REALLY well done here. Most have different phases during their battle, attack in different ways and pose a good challenge. While you don't primarily learn skills from leveling up or adding them in your skill tree, you pick them up from fallen enemies (a system carried over from previous games in the franchise).


This in turn brings me to looting in this game. There is a lot to be found here from monster drops. Weapons, skills, and more. While regular weapons drops are nothing special there are instances where monsters will drop RARE weapons. Most of the time these are really good, better than the ones that you already have at the moment. And while the game does introduce upgrading (its fairly simplistic here), there are no defense bonuses on armor here, its just mostly for decoration. NPCs are fully voiced (by popular japanese seiyuus, if I might add), and there are plenty of likable ones, especially those involved in the story. 

I hate this boss as a melee...

For the "free to play" version, the SEA client of "PSO 2" poses a good deal of restrictions (at the time of this review). For one, you cannot trade items, which in my opinion, GREATLY hurts the in game economy of this game's market. Next, you can't have your own room, which isn't that big of a deal, and you also can only have ONE character (which bugs the f**k out of me). The game also progresses far too slowly, you'll get a lot of story missions early on, but later they become scarce and rare. Then there's the leveling requirement....holy shit. Its not too bad at first, but the EXP requirements shoot up the roof later on, making it much more of a grind fest since you'll surely run out of quests before you level up.



"PSO 2" isn't the mega blockbuster MMORPG that its supposed to be...at least not yet for the SEA version. There are more classes, more story content and overall a lot more to be added on before it becomes the badass that its supposed to be. For now, its pretty good for a "free to play" game, but unless you intend to pay and go premium, there's quite a lot you're losing out. For SEA players, I suggest you give it some time before it slowly becomes better.








Happy gaming.

This should be a fairly quick filler, post. I figured I haven't updated the "About Me" portion for quite awhile, and that there were actually quite a few things about me that you all, as readers, should know. Once this post is done I'll link it in the "About Me" section so its much easier for you guys. This is mostly about my online persona so I won't be posting a picture of myself (I probably never will).


First things first, I'm 20 years old, hitting 21 this year, I started this blog when I was 16, making this blog 5 years old. I went through a lot since I started blogging, and while I still make a lot of stupid mistakes (grammar/spelling errors here and there), I do enjoy what I'm doing as a hobby. I'm from Singapore, and I'm currently serving the military at this period of time (because screw Singapore, every capable male HAS to serve the military, its compulsory). I study design and I have a diploma for it...


Enough about the stupid ass real life stuff, nobody gives a shit.



Gaming


I started this blog primarily to talk about games, but then started doing anime reviews too. Still, gaming is a massive part of my life, and while I may not have too much time to play them now (because army), I'll definitely find time in my daily life to play some games. I'm currently playing "League Of Legends" everyday with my 4 friends, and we've been playing together for the past 3 years. We're mostly casual, but after playing normals and some ranked team matches for 3 years, we know some stuff.

For the past 3 years "League" has been an everyday thing, but of course, I play a lot more than just "League". As an avid gamer, I cycle through games as I finish them, spending time on some more than others.  This is how things work. As for other games that I play everyday, "Hearthstone" comes to mind, because that's probably the best free to play online TCG out there, I'm serious.







My favorite types of games are JRPGs, my favorite game of all time is a tie between "Final Fantasy VII" and "The World Ends With You" (both Square Enix titles, go figure), with the "Shin Megami Tensei" games not too far behind, like "Persona" or "Devil Survivor". Other than these though, I generally enjoy playing most other JRPGs, be it modern and innovative ones or the old school turn based ones. As long as its a JRPG, I'll most probably try to get my hands on it and enjoy it ("Tales Of" series, "Atelier" series, "Etrian Odyssey" series...yeah, I love all the weird stuff). Why JRPGs? Because I enjoy the traditional JRPG characters, story and most of the time, the battle system. I'm a sucker for turn based combat and random encounters, as well as the overall design for most JRPG character stereotypes.







A close second favorite genre will be fighting games. While I do NOT run a fight stick for most of my fighting games, I enjoy them A LOT. For me though, there's a strict restriction to this. I actually do not enjoy "Street Fighter", which is the highest regarded fighting game out there, and most people play it. I enjoy the more fast paced fighting games, be it 2D or 3D, as long as it doesn't evolve too much turtling, I can get into it. For 2D fighters, "Blazblue", "Guilty Gear", "Persona 4:Arena" and "Marvel Vs Capcom" are some of the best shit around. For 3D fighters, I like "Soul Calibur" and "Tekken". Why fighting games? I do enjoy a little bit of the competitive nature that they give. I also LOVE action anime, so what better way to play out an action scene in games other than fighting games? They are the best representation of video games to do epic fights, because well, they ARE fighting games!



What else? I love rhythm games and to some extent, action platformers as well ("Devil May Cry", "Bayonetta" etc). My most hated genre of games include shooters and sports games. Mostly sports though, since there are some pretty f**king good shooter games out there (I love the "Bioshock" series). My favorite game development company is "Atlus", and my favorite video game character is Cloud....because yeah, he's my childhood hero. Maybe favorite isn't the right word, I should have used "most memorable".







Anime


Anime started off as a side priority for this blog, but somehow became one of my most oftenly posted topics. While I definitely came to love anime a lot more than I used to do, I still favor gaming over anime. I say that, but just take a look at my anime column...I've easily clocked an insane amount of anime over the years, and I can safely say that it's become part of my daily life already. 


Okay, first off, my favorite anime is "To Aru Majutsu No Index" as a series.







My second favorite anime is "Code Geass R2".







My third favorite anime....I don't have one, because its a tie between MANY amazing shows ("Fate Zero", "Shingeki No Kyojin", "Sword Art Online", "Baka Test", "Higurashi", "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood", "The Pet Girl Of Sakurasou"...the list goes on). There's too much to talk about anime, because there are SO many freaking types of shows out there, and each genre is good for something. For something more specific though, my favorite genre is a mix between action and harem.







Action harems are great, because they satisfy everything that I can ever ask for in an anime. Girls and amazing fights. Action has always been something I'm a fan of (come on, which guy doesn't enjoy watching a good old fashioned fight?), and of course, who can say no to all the types of girls in harems. Sure, it may be stereotypical, but its still something that many wish for.


I can't really list a 2nd favorite genre, because there's way too many anime genres that I enjoy as a second rate. Comedy, romance, mystery, horror....all of these really get me going. If there's a genre of anime that I generally dislike, it would be the sports anime (as you can tell, I hate sports). As for my favorite anime character, its too freaking hard for me to list one out. But if there's one character whose design I REALLY love, its Black Rock Shooter.








Erm...that's it, right? What else am I missing? I think that's all you need to know about me as the author of this blog. Actually....this whole post was just about my preferences in games and anime, wasn't it? Bah, forget it, enjoy.