Gamer--freakz

Ibuki Kido

As one of the relatively newer female seiyuus, Ibuki Kido's got quite a bit laid out for her. While she doesn't have that many characters under her belt now, its quite easy to see her get more as she goes. At the moment, she's just this little adorable, cute-sy girl who voices characters that have relatively high pitched voices. If anything, she's great for cute characters, only okay for anything else. However, if its for that cute and petite character, her voice fits right in. We're talking Kasumi (GJ Bu!), Nanami (If Her Flag Breaks), Claire (Blade Dance Of Elementalers) and the adorable as hell Chinami (Golden Time!). Of course, she has that try hard girl spirit in her debut "Idolm@ster" role in Kana (Idolm@ster Movie), and she does sound kind of hot as Rinka (Tokyo ESP). Amami (Re-Kan!) is her take on a ditsy main heroine, and my favorite role from her is Akiko (OniAi), who is simply just an adorable bro-con with insane fetishes.


Characters from left to right


1st row - Kasumi (Gj Bu!), Amami (Re-Kan!), Kana (Idolm@ster Movie)

2nd row - Nanami (If Her Flag Breaks), Chinami (Golden Time!), Claire (Blade Dance Of Elementalers)

3rd row - Rinka (Tokyo ESP), Akiko (OniAi)




Kouki Uchiyama





The man with an incredibly "protagonist esque" voice. It was almost as if he was made to do these types of main characters. Let's start with the obvious ones, the ones who sound incredibly generic and get all the ladies. He does well on Ichika (Infinite Stratos), and honestly he's also quite good as Raku (Nisekoi), especially with the way he sounds so clueless as times, befitting of these MCs. Then we have the slightly more troubled protagonists, especially the ones he does in video games. I love his performances for Roxas (Kingdom Hearts II) and Neku (The World Ends With You), they are so full of personality, its hard not to like'em. Then there's the slightly cocky Alis (Sunday Without God), the enigmatic Goldov (Rokka No Yuusha) as well as two of his, personally, great rolls, the narcissistic Kanie (Amagi Brilliant Park) and charismatic Soul Eater Evans (Soul Eater).



Characters from left to right


1st row - Goldov (Rokka No Yuusha), Ichika (Infinite Stratos), Soul Eater Evans (Soul Eater), Alis (Sunday Without God)

2nd row - Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Kanie (Amagi Brilliant Park), Neku (The World Ends With You), Raku (Nisekoi)




Katsuyuki Konishi

Opening Songs
OP 1 - I Want To Be Friends (Gakuen Seikatsubu)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Harmonize Clover (Maon Kurosaki)

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Psychological

Episodes: 12



Well here we are again with another mainstream, cute-sy show that obviously appeals to the moe crowd more than anything else. With cute girls doing cute stuff in a standard, high school setting that has been abused to death, its basically just another cut and paste show that'll appeal to you if you enjoy this kind of stuff.....


Not.


"School Live" is probably the top show of 2015, no bars held. Its insane, its unique, its absolutely mind f**king and its also one of the most emotional experiences in a long time, let alone the year 2015. While sporting an art/visual style that will quickly have many others label it as another cliche moe piece of junk....a book should never be judged by its cover. Despite what you may or may NOT think by looking at its promo-art alone, "School Live!" is a psychological, drama-packed zombie apocalypse show. Yes, its about zombies, and not the usual, we kill zombies everyday ez kind of show, its a show about a bunch of girls trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse with little ways to fight back. It may not sound like much, but with a delusional protagonist, everything changes. Everything.

How to badass-ify.

With completely misleading songs, its actually worth to watch the opening and ending themes for the show at least once. "I Want To Be Friends" is the opening theme and its performed by Gakeun Seikatsubu, the group of seiyuus that voice the main characters of the show. Its extremely happy and energetic, which is highly contradiction to the theme of the show. The ending theme as well, which is "Harmonize Clover" by Maon Kurosaki, its a lot slower than the opening theme, but doesn't really convey what the show is actually about.



Rating: 8.5/10



One show that I can easily recommend to anyone looking to start on anime, really. Despite its awkwardly cute-sy visual style, "School Live" is one of the most, mentally brutal and f**ked up shows that I've seen in awhile. Sure, it might not be that heavy in terms of gore, but from a mental/psychological standpoint, "School Live!" is incredibly f**ked up. Especially when we get such an...interesting protagonist that's so screwed up in the head. Instead of a squad of school girls going around killing zombies, they're basically just trying to survive behind a barricade, trying to help their friend live through tough times where she in mentally unstable. Psychology is the main theme in this show, instead of a straight-out zombie show, its more of a show about a girl trying to fight her way through her mind and to survive in a bleak, destroyed world, with her friends trying to help her cope. I love it, and since the show is so fully packed with drama, there are a multitude of emotional moments and very, very strong character interactions.

Death, nothing but death around you.

Yuki is your average, incredibly energetic and happy-go-lucky high schooler with a lot of friends. She's a natural clutz and is cute without even trying, making her a hit with most of her school mates. She belongs to the school's "Living" or survival club, a club that well, does stuff around school at their jurisdiction. With Yuki attending classes and talking to her friends as always, its easy to think that there's nothing quite going wrong here. Actually, the world has already plunged into chaos, with a zombie apocalypse hitting everyone, including all the students in the school. The only 5 girls alive are Yuki's friends in the survival club, which is actually just a club leeching off the school building's supplies to survive as they keep themselves barricaded from zombies. With Yuki still thinking that everything is as per normal, its their job to keep her in check and to prevent her from ever leaving the barricade to...well, her death, where all the zombies reside.


"School Live" is an amazing show if anything. Its not action packed and its not full of sparks or explosions, but if emotional impact means even a thing to you at all, you'll not want to miss "School Live!". This was one of the few shows that after I finished it, I immediately went to read the manga, because it was simply not enough. Love it, I hope this show gets a sequel, because the story after this is pretty hardcore.



Peace.

Vendrick
HP: 11450
Skills: Sword Slam, Sword Swipe
Souls: 90000

Difficulty: 1/5
Deaths: 0



Now we move on to the 2 optional bosses of the game that are pretty much meant to be beat post game. First off we have Vendrick, the fallen king that turned into a giant ass, ugly hollow man. Contrary to popular belief, the 2 optional post game bosses are complete cake walks, and its pretty much true. Vendrick here is a pushover, if anything, he's just a cheap health sponge with an incredibly shitty move set and incredibly high, one shot worthy damage. A really lazy boss design IMO. To challenge him, you first need to obtain 4 "Soul Of A Giant" pieces, or you can't hope to damage him at all.

Big, butt ugly, and naked.

Vendrick is a complete walk in the park, with only 2 attacks and with only 1 of it having different variations to it, there's really not much you need to look out for. He has a massive amount of health and his damage is so f**king high that no matter how tanky you are, chances are he will one shot you if he lands even a single hit. However, his attacks are SO SLOW and so highly telegraphed that its impossible to get hit by them. If you do get hit once though, you lose, and you'll need to go through his ridiculous HP bar again. If anything, he's just tedious.


Sword Slam -  A vertical, downward sword slam. May sometimes use this multiple times in rapid succession. Just strafe to his non-sword arm to avoid it.

Sword Swipe - A horizontal sword swipe. PAINFULLY easy to see coming. Just block it, or strafe to his non-sword arm to avoid it.


As you can f**king see, as long as you strafe to his non-sword arm, this battle is a complete walk in the park. If anything, this is nothing but a massive training dummy with a ridiculous amount of health for you to cut down. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, if you get hit once you lose, so just follow the wiki's advice of equipping the "Red Tearstone" ring, then go get hit by those idiotic knights outside the king's tomb until you are 30% HP. With the attack buff in tow, your damage is increased, making killing Vendrick faster. As mentioned, it doesn't matter what your HP is anyway, so just get it lowered and get the damage buff to kill this faggot quicker.


Despite being completely melee and having only 2 melee attacks (a horizontal and a vertical swipe, go figure), the way to completely steamroll Vendrick is to constantly be in his face. His attacks are so slow to the point that simply WALKING to the side will have him miss it. I kid you not, you won't have to roll even once during this entire battle, just lock on to him, and strafe towards his non-sword arm. All of his attacks will miss you, and since he takes SO long to recover, you get free hits in every time. At times he will jump back to recover, all you need to do is run up to him and stick to his non-sword arm again. Rinse and f**king repeat until he is dead.

David and goliath.

Vendrick is a complete walk in the park and a freaking pushover for a post game boss. Not that the following boss is much tougher, but you get what I mean. The legendary king who built Drangleic certainly deserves more than this.



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Ancient Dragon
HP: 19840
Skills: Fire Breath (Air)*, Fire Breath (Lower), Fire Breath.  Stomp, Tail Slam, Bite
Souls: 120000

Difficulty: 2/5
Deaths: 10+



The other optional boss of the game. Simply one of the most amazing looking things in the game, the Ancient Dragon brings nothing but death and frustration to all who dare to face it. Like Vendrick, this was simply not what I expected from an end game optional boss. He is nothing but a massive health sponge riddled with nothing but instant kill attacks, much more so than Vendrick. However, unlike Vendrick, he DOES look cool.

Yeah, that's a dragon alright.

Contrary to the size of the damn thing, yes, the Ancient Dragon can, and will, one shot you. I mean, you are the size of its freaking toe, there's NO WAY you can survive ANYTHING from it. With that in mind, you should, once again, remove ALL armor and go in guns blazing with a full-on offensive mindset, after all, this guy somehow can soak MORE DAMAGE than freaking Vendrick. He has a couple of attacks, though all of them are ridiculously easy to avoid. Again, this is nothing but a tedious suicide boss with nothing but cheap one shots and a lot of health, his attacks aren't even hard to avoid.


Fire Breath (Air)* - He flies into the air and sprays breaths of fire downwards, which splash in a massive AOE. You won't survive this.

Fire Breath (Lower) - He stands on his hind legs while on the ground and breaths fire in front of him. Once again, you won't survive this.

Fire Breath - A regular dragon's fire breath which he does on all fours looking forward. Nothing much to say, you know you won't survive this as well.

Stomp - He stomps any of his feet. Insane damage, you MAY survive if you are incredibly tanky, however, I wouldn't count on it.

Tail Slam - He lifts his tail and slams in into the ground. Since his tail is incredibly huge, this attack has massive AOE. Probably a one shot.

Bite - He bites forward with his massive head, lunging forward ever so slightly. I haven't got hit by this before, but I assume its a one shot.



What did I say? This guy is nothing but one shots, especially his fire breaths. He has 3 variations of it, but really, all you need to look out for is the one in the air. When his wings flap and he starts to take off, just f**king run to the other side of the map, wait for him to finish blowing his load, then run back to slap him, because this shit is f**king annoying. That is literally his only dangerous attack, and believe me when I say he spams the living SHIT out of this move. After probably one or two ground attacks, he takes flight and tries to cheese you, every, single, time.


Other than that though, this is an extremely straightforward fight. Like Vendrick, the Ancient Dragon's attacks are ridiculously slow because of his size. Whenever he lifts his foot or tail to slam you into the ground, you have a gracious amount of time to react. His health pool is crazy, almost twice that of Vendrick,, who has about 33% more than Nashandra, the final boss. This fight is long, tedious, and dreadfully boring. You are in no threat of actually die-ing to any of his ground moves, and sometimes RNG screws you as he takes flight to do his aerial fire breath near the edge of the arena, giving you little room to work with as you INSTANTLY die, bathing in flames. 

F**k. This. Shit.

Hit him anywhere, I mean, really, as long as he's on the ground, you're safe. Of course, try not to go for the tail, and if he does a breath attack on the ground, its easy pickings, enjoy your free hits. He is tanky as shit, you're going to need a long ass time to kill him. If RNG doesn't f**k with you and you just keep running the hell away when he does his aerial fire breath and hit him while he's doing jack dick on the ground, you will, eventually, kill the sucker. He is NOT worth the 120000 souls, and after I beat him once on my first character, I never went back to challenge this guy. 


He is just so tanky, boring, repetitive, and lazy. For one of the coolest looking (if not, THE coolest looking) bosses in the game, he sure is one hell of a drag to fight.

Yeah, the female leads are sexy, but that's the most you'll get.

Kiyoshi, this is only the beginning.

Kiyoshi is just a regular high school freshman with a...very lucky situation to be in. Him along with 4 other young men have been admitted into Hachimmitsu Private Academy, a school that used to be an "all-girls school" until it started accepting males at the beginning of their current school year. Being the only 5 girls surrounded by a multitude of other girls, its like a dream come true, though it soon becomes clear that they're not quite welcome. After an attempted peaking operation on bathing girls went wrong, all 5 of the guys were quickly captured and prosecuted, bearing the hatred of every single girl in the academy. To make matters worse, to pay for their crimes, they were quickly banished into the school's new built "prison" function, in which the 5 guys had to serve their time in there for a month before they were restored back to being regular students. However...on top of the student body stands the student council, which consists of 3, elegantly deadly ladies who have dedicated themselves to snuffing these guys out. Unfortunately for our 5 dudes, its these 3 exact ladies who will be delivering punishment to them while they serve their time in this prison. So much for an awesome start to their high school life...


"Prison School" is just f**ked up and probably won't be a show that many people will enjoy. Still, its rather unique, and I do enjoy the character design and art direction. The fan service is overdone, but I doubt there will be those who enjoy it. If you're  masochist, this will probably be your 10/10 anime. A season 2 is around the corner, I'll be looking out for that.

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Gentle Hope (Saori Hayami)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Placing On Bonds (Eyelis)

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Episodes: 12



Anime has gotten itself a little bit more variety in these past couple of years. With a lot less fan service based shows, there are more shows catered towards different audiences showing up, like this one. "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" is most definitely not a show for everyone, if anything, its more aligned in the shojo genre than anything, but its still a good show. Its not flashy, its not about saving the world, its just simple love story about a country girl joining the ranks of royalty. I'll be completely honest and say that this show has nothing to do "Snow White" in terms of lore, its probably just a spin on the main protagonist's name. With that out of the way, if you're looking for a simple romance anime with a medieval setting and some pretty good characters, "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" might be right up your alley. 

Everyone needs a little bit of a "cut and paste" romance in their lives.

The opening theme is "Gentle Hope" by Saori Hayami, the seiyuu for the main protagonist. Honestly, she's been getting quite a bit of love recently, but that's kind of good, since she IS talented. Anyway, for an opening theme, I guess "Gentle Hope" does fit in with the theme of the show, but its not my cup of tea. The ending theme is "Placing On Bonds" by Eyelis. Nothing much to see here, just a basic, slow-tempo-ed ending theme.



Rating: 7.5/10



Its really hard to hate "Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime", simply because it doesn't do a whole lot of bad and while there aren't a lot of amazing, stand out moments within the show, its consistently good throughout. If you enjoy the show's early offerings, then the chances are that you'll be sticking with it throughout. The show is all about character development, with the cast of characters getting their own episodes to build up on their characters, while our main protagonists gets her own share along each and every episode. Because of this, there are a lot of characters to like, and honestly, I did enjoy seeing these characters interact. The main protagonist, Shirayuki, herself proves time and time again that she isn't some useless girl who sucks up to the prince to get what she wants, and that she's able to do things with her own 2 hands that most can't. Its a story about a girl constantly challenging herself to prove to the others that she's not just there because she's "flavor of the month". Along the way she simply meets a ton of bishonens....that each have their own story to prove. Well...its a show more catered to the female demographic, but its not to say that guys can't join in. If you're not all about swords, gun, boobs and bloodshed, then this might be okay for you.

And the crowd goes wild.

Shirayuki is a regular, pretty young girl working at her country's local clinic as a herbalist. Having her own base of loyal customers and being well received by the townspeople, her life seemed like it was fully cut out for her. There was one problem though, she had red hair, an extremely rare trait in the world. Put that on a girl with a decent looking face, and you've got yourself a prized possession. The prince of the country, Raji, sought to claim Shirayuki for himself because of her hair. When she knew of this, Shirayuki cut her hair short to despise him, then fled the country. She meets with Zen, Mitsuhide and Kiki, 3 travelling friends from a neighboring kingdom. While they were getting to know one another, Raji appeared and threatened to retrieve Shirayuki with some poisoned apples. After some debate, it turned out that Zen was the prince of Clarines, a neighboring country. With him threatening Raji for attacking Shirayuki, Raji backed off, and Shirayuki moved into Clarines to start a new life. Little did she know, that she would be working closely with prince Zen multiple times.


"Akagami No Shirayuki-Hime" is a good romance show with potential to grow. With the 2nd season already done, I'll be happy to see the continuation between Shirayuki's romance. This first season is good, and though it isn't fantastic, the charm is that the show never suffers from many drops in qualities.