Why this offends me and many others who bought the game:
It’s been only 5 months since the game came out, and with UMvC3 set to release this November, it will only have been 9 months since me and the majority of people going to EVO will have paid $60-$70 on what was essentially the “Prototype” version of MvC3, while getting the “full” version will cost another $40. It’s like mother deciding to fuck and get pregnant again immediately after giving birth to a child. Hats off to everyone who said MvC3 offered the bare minimum of content in a fighting game, you guys had it spot on.
Capcom cancelled Megaman Legends 3…yeah, I know that doesn’t have a lot to do with MvC3… …except when they come out with this bullshit. Not only is the stage way too white for my taste (example of stages that have either way to bright or dark colors that make it difficult to play in), the fact that they’re showing another Legends stage that’s not quite new, but a nod to Legends 2, especially since just 2 days earlier they had cancelled it, is even more of a slap in the face than the announcement of UMvC3 itself.
Jill and Shuma are still DLC and need to be bought. Gee Capcom, thanks for that, it makes me happy to know that, even though you’re rehashing the game like you did with SSF4′s costumes, that I still got some value for spending the extra $10 to buy those two. Even though they’re on the disc and the DLC obviously just fucking unlock codes.
Honestly, I’m not all that surprised, but I do tend to take the “expect the worst, hope for the best” approach when it comes to future events. My “best” in this cause would be for the original MvC3 to be getting more DLC that was promised. Hell, what I could’ve definitely bought was that UMvC3 would, like SSFIV:AE, be DLC and not cost the price of another fucking game in order to buy it. Especially when I’ve just now gotten decent at the game. This is my own little rant, but I found that my team is actually pretty competitive, and while any good fighting game player works around the balances, I’m too attached to what I already have, with their setups and ability to DLC-glitch, that to have it all taken away in the span of less than a year is a little upsetting. Despite all these new characters, I like the ones I have already, and don’t want to bother building another team centering around the newer characters and their attributes…
Seriously, this box is MASSIVE, and the fig itself is pretty huge for a 1/7.
First of all, many thanks to my co-author Jay for buying me this fig, an easily shrugged off promise from many months ago when the fig was released, followed through upon the second batch. Thanks Jay <3
To those of you who didn’t read the Anime Expo post, I flew down from good ol’ snowy Canada to sunny California to attend AX and meet up with Jay and his gang of weiner friends =D. Prior to the con, Jay saw the second batch of these figs go up for order and decided to have it shipped to me instead of hunting it down at AX. A good call, but for a different reason, there were plenty at the con, but due to its size, there would have been no way for me to have brought it home on the flight back. Jay bought one himself and had to leave it with a friend to be shipped at a later date.
Yes, I realize I missed the top part of her sword.
I’ve made it a point to purchase either figures from Alter or Good Smile Company because of how accurate most of their figures look in comparison to companies like Gift (whose recent figure, I have no idea why people like so much). Overall, I think both of them do the best jobs of making figures that capture the essence of a character, especially Good Smile, who have been able to do that with just their Figma series; their colors and details to facial features and clothing stand out much more in their Figma series than Revoltech’s figures do. I’m glad to see that the same amount of detail carries over to their PVC figures as well, especially in the case of their Saber Alter figure. Having been impressed with the Figma version I bought a few months back, I was surprised (not really *cough*SaberLily*cough*) to find an actual figure in the works. It was one of my most sought after items when I went to Anime Expo, but when I did not, I instead opted to purchase one off Amazon as soon as I got home (and for cheaper for what the booths were selling her for, SURPRISE SURPRISE). In any case, I now have it and I must say it’s wonderful.
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Unboxing wise, Saber’s about as protected from the elements as Dizzy was (which is good, since the box mine came in was a bit damaged despite the bubble-wrap surrounded box), but not nearly as painful to get out of the plastic: I didn’t mention this before, but Dizzy’s twist-wires were initially hard to locate when getting out of the plastic, whereas Saber’s were visible as soon as I looked at the back.
Of other note, the “Vortigern” sword is encased by itself in another mold that is stored no the back, just like other Figma’s, and a sign of Good Smile’s packaging (or so I’ll think until proven otherwise).
Both Excalibur and Vortigern are separated into two different parts in order to easily fit into Saber’s hand(s). Excalibur isn’t actually long enough for Saber’s open hand to actually cradle, and instead the bottom hilt is shown to merely rest on the open’s hands palm. This creates a bit of a problem though: if you can tell by that blurry ass picture above, getting the bottom hilt part to attach is a chore because you must press the top part into it, which in turn forces the other arm to move in a way you really don’t want these figures to move, especially if you think you’re going to break it with every little mistake, like I do.
The entire hilt of Vortigern, on the other hand, its completely detached from the “blade” and slides into both hands, as well as sticking out on the other end for the “blade” to be inserted there, which requires a lot less contact with the figure and more with the sword. Because I like the overall look of it, I’ve decided to stick with Vortigern instead of Excalibur.
As with the figma version, Saber Alter has 2 detachable hair pieces, one with the visor acquired after her transformation by Sakura/Angra Mainyu, and the one without that shows her soulless, yellow eyes. They actually require a lot less force to take out than I had initially thought, which is reciprocal to putting them back in so long as you align the pins on the hair pieces to the holes inside the head.
Other random things I’ve come across is that the figure is really “pointy” around her boots and gauntlets, which took me by surprise when I first tried to hold the figure. I’ve noticed the figure also falls off the base if pushed from the front, which concerns me the most. While there IS a gap between the pins and the feet, it’s pushed down as far as I can get with my own strength, and I really don’t want to put more effort to push it down further for risk that I may lose my balance and break her somehow. So far, I’ve just got her box behind her to give her something to fall back on. Other than that though, I have no other complaints, and she looks absolutely fantastic.
After a bunch of crazy running around to confirm whether I COULD go or not, I finally made my way to Anime Expo. The event was particularly a big deal for me since, besides the usual guest stuff happening, I would be:
1. Meeting up with Shirukii for the first time.
2. Hanging out with my usual friends for the last time until whenever I’m able to leave Montana again.
It really was quite a trip, and I made a lot of good and not so good memories there. For starters…
Day 1 – Pre-registration, Sawashiro Miyuki
I left early morning to catch my 6:15 AM flight to Salt Lake City where I would transfer planes and fly to LAX. First off, I couldn’t fall asleep the previous night, despite trying to sleep around 7:00 PM with three shots of vodka to help me become dizzy and fall asleep faster. I ended up falling asleep around 1:00 AM and immediately had to wake up at 3:15 AM to get to the airport…which was futile anyway because none of the staff except for security was even there yet, so I couldn’t even check my bags until around 5:00 AM. Combine this with my inability to sleep on a plane, and you get me running on Day 1 with 2 hours of sleep, something I tried not to do after getting only 4 hours last year. Secondly, there was some sort of delay and as soon as I landed in Salt Lake, I had to board my second plane without being given a chance to eat dinner. Definitely getting a little pissed off by now. I eventually landed and got my trip to the convention center no problem, so I thought it was going to go well…
Until I hit the fucking pre-registration line, which was so bad that the At-con pre-registration line was considerably shorter. Something I had thought unthinkable, but at the same time it made since if everyone was under the mindset that I should pre-register so I don’t have to wait in a longer line. At this point, coupled with the fact that the group in front of me would stop to take pictures of every Tiger & Bunny cosplayer they saw and preventing the line from moving forward, I was extremely pissed and would occassionally “accidentally” hit the heel of one their shoes with my luggage bag. I know that may be messed up a bit, but I really didn’t care at the time since it seemed imminent that I would be missing Sawashiro’s panel.
Luckily, I didn’t. I got done around 12:15PM, and I was glad to find the line to get in wasn’t that long. While a couple of mishaps happened, including one I won’t mention here, everything seemed fine, and I found myself chatting with other fans not only about Sawashiro herself, but about Marvel and SSF4: Arcade Edition, as well as showing what I was going to get autographed. We then proceeded into the Petree Hall for the main event.
First off, unfortunately and as many who went to the panel know, there was no video or photography allowed during the panel. While one part of me thinks this was a personal request from Sawashiro-san herself (since flash photography fucks you up), another part of me wants to think this is another monopolizing money plan for AX since there was at least one person recording the entire panel in the front row, along with a promise that the events will be available on a highlights video in the near future…which never ever happens. No use crying over it though, just put it away in my bag and continued on. I was lucky enough to be sitting about 6 rows away from the front row.
As for the panel itself, Danny Choo was MC for the panel, which to me just felt weird cause I didn’t see him in his Stormtrooper costume. Still, it seemed a bit more pleasant to have him around as opposed to just your average interpreter. Anyhow, with a call of “MIYUKI SAWASHIRO!” from the audience to “awake her from her jetlag” (even though she apparently got here Wednesday?) Sawashiro-san came out dressed in a lovely kimono. The panel at first started out with some standard Q&A that Danny read off a piece of paper, something I started to start disliking due to some rather unpleasant memories from last year. Still, some of it was interesting regarding the sadistic Maria from Arakawa Under the Bridge being one of her more sadistic roles, and it’s also nice they decided to save streaming the first episode of Arakawa for Day 2 and have it be it’s own event. And then, finally, after the first 15-20 minutes, Danny decides to take questions from the audience. Now, how this was set up was different from last year in that audience members would have to raise their hands rather than line up in front of a mic stand; FYI, there was a mic stand with no mic in the aisle I was sitting so I had assumed it would be used. It gets even weirder when Danny tries to make people stand out for the questions by waving their hands and doing other dumb shit to get picked. A bunch of the questions were were archived on a transcript at Anime Diet, which you can check out here.
As for me, I did get to ask my question, which if you look at that transcript is the Cammy related question that Mike has transcribed there, though I think his version of her answer is a bit incorrect: rather than “Uncertain she was going to do it” (the recent E3 trailer confirms her to be Cammy’s seiyuu again), since I was more under the impression that she can’t talk about SFxT in general since the game isn’t out yet.
What’s NOT in that transcript is the manner in which I was able to ask the question: being frustrated that we had to do all this idiotic stuff to get a question, I was willing to act wild in order to get my chance. After some just rather silly stuff to get ask, Danny Choo chooses to propose this little number:
“Okay, can anyone do a handstand maybe?”
I’m not sure to this day whether or not anyone was hesitating to do this task, but me in my infinite wisdom decided to rush out to the aisle and attempt a one-handed handstand while grabbing my two legs with the other hands, due to my limited (read = almost zero) experience break dancing when I was in junior high. Leave it to me to put too much force into the headstand and not balance myself to cause me to overshoot and tumble onto my back on the aisle and be handed a mic to ask my question with short breath right away. Do I regret it though? Nope.
Table where she was signing. Minus her.
Afterwards, Sawashiro-san gave away some signed audio CDs by playing audience Janken. Then, massive stampede to the Exhibit Hall’s NIS America booth where, to my dismay, I found out that her signing here would be giving customers who bought the Arakawa Premium Box set would be given a priority ticket. Thinking all hope to be lost and thinking I would have to fight my way through the general signing event happening later that day, along comes an NIS America employee to announce they hadn’t sold all of the Arakawa Box sets yet and that it would still be possible to get a ticket upon purchase. I purchased one without a beat and proceeded to get her to autograph my Weiss stick art. And while she didn’t freak out with excitement like Kitamura Eri did last year, she nonetheless gave a very sweet thank you and shook my hand (I never noticed, but her hand is about as small as mine…and very soft ). Feeling satisfied, I then went on to explore the dealer’s a little bit before meeting up with Nick, Su, Spenser, and Kaushik to go eat at Chipotle, which was orgasmic for a couple of reasons:
1. No Chipotle’s in Montana, I hadn’t had it in a month.
2. I was very hungry considering all I had to eat that day were two bags of peanuts and a cup of coffee on the plane.
Afterwards, feeling tired, I went back to my room and tried to go to sleep around 9 PM…only for a certain group of people come knocking on my door and offering my fucking red velvet cupcakes. And that’s how I’ll always remember first meeting Shirukii in real life. Fucking asshole.
Day 2 – Sawashiro Miyuki (again), Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Tournament, Kalafina concert.
Finally getting some sleep around 10:30PM, I found myself waking up around 6:15 AM. Since I got that pesky eight hours of sleep business out of the way, I figured why not wake up and enjoy morning coffee and breakfast at my local Starbucks? After getting an iced Caramel Macchiato and choosing to eat the Coffee Cake instead of breakfast sandwhich which was mistakenly put into my bag, I decided to travel to the console gaming room at AX, thinking it would at least be open before the Exhibit Hall…except it wasn’t and, after going to the actual coin op arcade and playing a game of SSF4 Arcade Edition (I suck horribly at that game now), I found myself instead going back to my room and setting up my PS3 to practice my combos in Marvel to prepare for the tournament. As the clock rounded 9:40, I decided to journey to the dealer’s hall and wait for it to be open…except I didn’t expect for it to have a line to go in until opening, something which I immediately knew would mean for me: if I wanted to get Sawashiro’s autograph a second time, I should’ve lined up much earlier, especially since the JW Marriot is litterally right next to the convention center. When the Hall opened, I needed to wait for 15 minutes before proceeding myself and going to the autograph area: as I expected, there was already a line to get her autograph, and I happened to be at the part where the staff basically said “You’re not getting one, try the NIS booth later again.” Thinking about it, I remembered that, aside from Arakawa, NIS was giving priority tickets to those who bought both volumes of Persona -Trinity Soul- Premium Boxes. While I know I haven’t heard too many good things about the show, I really wanted to get her to sign one more time on a blank autograph/sketch plaque. Thus did I go to the NIs booth and proceed to put an order down for Persona. Got my ticket and my bag of both boxes when I notice that there are actually two signings happening, one 12:30 – 2:00 and one 4:30 – 6:00. Since the Marvel tournament was happening during the first signing I asked if I could get a ticket for the second one and got my ticket exchanged. Twas a success, and I proceeded to the console room to sign up for the tournament and try to get some casuals in.
If you want a bigger stick than that, then enter coupon code CROSSCOUNTER…
The tournament itself had about 100+ entrants, which led to the organizers setting all matches to be best 2 of 3, single elimination until Top 16 came. I didn’t get very far and went 1-1 do to a person using a Gold-Hsien Ko team, something I hadn’t had a lot of experience fighting and cost me the tournament, which sucks because I was fairly confident I would at least make top 16. Just goes to show you that it’s important to learn how to handle gimmicks during a tournament, and something I’ll be grinding in the future.
Since this meant I finished around 2:00, I texted Shirukii and met up with him to look around in the dealer’s hall and make some purchases before heading back to the NIS booth around 3:30 to try and wait in line. To my pleasant surprise, a line had not been formed yet, so after asking an NIS Employee about it, he suggested I go ahead and start the line. While being first in line was rather short lived due to someone holding a priority ticket from YESTERDAY, this did mean that I would be able to get Sawashiro’s autograph and go to Kalafina’s concert at the Club Nokia without too much trouble. My friend Daryl called me to request putting stuff in my room before the Kalafina concert, so I had him meet me in the line and kill time talking about what’s been going on so far until Sawashiro came into the booth, though not quite ready to sign yet. As she came by, I waved to her (again, having a serious case of deja vu) and she waved back without anyone except me, Daryl, and the guy in front of me noticing she was there. A few more minutes of waiting, and finally I was up to get my plaque signed. Again, I got to shake her hand, and after an exchange of “Arigatou Gozaimasu” she said “Thank you in English.” My response:
“It was nice to- thank you so much for- THANK YOU FOR COMING!”
My words came out exactly like that. I get starstruck way too easily. For seiyuus.
Afterwards, instead of making immediately towards Club Nokia, me and Daryl played a few games of Marvel before trying to get in. Something we didn’t count on was there already being a line and the concert actually managing to start close to the scheduled time. By the time we arrived, I’d like to say Kalafina only sang one song that we missed the beginning part of.
The concert itself was pretty awesome. I had thought at first that they were lip syncing because of how well they were singing, until I noticed a few times where the BGM track would be louder during the more softer parts of some songs. The setlist I believe was:
I feel I might have forgottens some as well as the exact order, but it was awesome. Most hype songs in my opinion were oblivious, sprinter, and Music.
Afterwards, me and Daryl met up with Shirukii’s group to have dinner at the ESPN Zone, which I feel bad about since Daryl ended up having to scarf down his food in order to make it to the Hatsune Miku concert in time; he later texted me that the concert hadn’t actually started by the time he DID get in though. ggs AX Scheduling.
Day 3 – Boredness, Voice Acting Panel, Dinner.
Day 3 seemed a bit slower than most since not that much was going on, but I did buy most of my stuff that day due to the excessive amount of time I spent in the Exhibit Hall. At the time, I had been debating going to Kurasaki Maon’s concert later that day, but eventually decided against spending $15 for it and didn’t want to bother waiting until they perhaps started giving it away for free. I did briefly go with Daryl to the NIS Video Game panel where they previewed Cave Story 3D, Bleach: Soul Ressureccion, and Disgaea 4, plus a Q&A panel with President of NIS, Niikawa Souhei, but overall I felt a bit disinterested. Afterwards, I met up with Shirukii’s group once again and toured the Exhibit Hall until I decided to go to the Bang Zoom! Voice Acting panel with Nick and Spenser. While the information in the panel wasn’t anything really new to anyone familiar with the voice acting/dubbing process, the real point of these panels is to get volunteers to try a recording live during the panel in front of the Bang Zoom! team with VA’s Tony Oliver and Sandy Fox commenting on how to approach a character and critiquing about how to improve. Because I will obviously pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a voice actor in approximately 6 years time, I was fairly disappointed I did not get picked to try a session, but I learned a lot about the mistakes made from some of the ones who did get a chance to act.
By far, the most memorable experience on Day 3 was dinner, or rather what it took for us to go to dinner. Shirukii’s group met with mine in my room (where we, again, were playing Marvel), before we set out to eat dinner at Daikokuya Ramen in Little Tokyo. While the route estimated 7 minutes t get there, thanks to my infinite wisdom, I had a assumed we could take a certain street and ride it all the way into the road we were supposed to go down. Thanks to that and my misunderstanding how roads in Downtown LA worked, we got into Little Tokyo in about 30 minutes. What’s more, we only had one 5 seater car to work with, with a total party of 9 actually eating, so we had to make two trips, with me at the wheel with no navigator. Thus, it took another 30 minutes to find my way back to the JW Marriot. The trip back only took about 10 minutes thanks to having a navigator and following the directions as laid by the iPhone GPS thing.
Dinner Daikokuya Ramen unfortunately ended being cancelled due to them being packed and not taking reservations on tables unless the entire party was there. Instead, Nick and co. found another restaurant, Teishokuya of Tokyo aka “T.O.T.” that we settled for, which in the end turned out to be great. I myself ate Tonkotsu Ramen, Shirukii ordering soft shell crab and…some other stuff I don’t remember because I was too busy eating my stuff. Conversation topics ranging from Shirukii’s problems with Starcraft II to stock phrases said in h-anime made it truly a memorable night and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Day 4 – Checking out, salty runbacks on Skullgirls, going back to Montana.
Hold that.
Day 4 was pretty somber for me, stemming mainly that I wouldn’t be seeing any of these people I had such a great time with for almost another year depending on whatever circumstances may come up. Still, I took one more tour around the Exhibit Hall, making my last purchases and also having an extremely salty match in Skullgirls, before saying goodbye to everyone besides Nick, who would drive me to the airport. Got on the plane, then started writing this post as I flew into Salt Lake, then into Great Falls.
Now I sit here in a pile of dirty clothes, a bunch of swag, and one more TE Stick than I came there with. Overall I had fun this year, and while there weren’t as many guests that I was interested in as last year, nothing incredibly exciting to do during Day 3, and missing both Opening and Closing ceremonies, as well as the Kalafina panel, I had a good time and eagerly await next year.
Autograph GETS
So obviously, I only got Sawashiro-san’s autograph, but I did get it twice:
First off, my initial goal, my Weiss TE Stick Layout. This actually has quite a bit of history behind it: while the background is a page from the Arcana Heart 3 artbook, the left image of Weiss swinging her sword was originally a black and white picture I found on danbooru, mirrored from the pixiv page of doujin artist Takeda Hiromitsu. I commissioned deviantart artist Takusi to color the picture in. I was very pleased with her work and set out to get Arthur Hong of Tek Innovations to print it out. Unfortunately, the first print that came in was bent due to carelessness of the USPS, so it was reprintted with a bit darker colors and sent with my Plexi-glass cover. At this point, I was going to throw the biggest fit if I didn’t get this thing signed after how much time I spent on it.
Putting the lessons from last year’s AX with Kitamura Eri into play, I brought along and held a silver sharpie for Sawashiro-san to sign with…only to find out she had her own silver and gold sharpies with her, along with the standard black one. I chose to get the signature in silver, though I’m still left wondering if gold would’ve been better. Either way, I’m still ecstatic I was able to get it. And not only that, Sawashiro-san had this cute little stamp with her first name in hiragana on it that she stamped on the blade swipe after she had physically signed it.
EDIT: Finished Stick
Finally got around to building it last night. Much better than that dumb 360 colored buttons shit.
The second time was on this autograph plaque. Fairly standard, but I did have her write my name in Katakana this time. She also drew a “with <3″ symbol to fill up the bottom part the plaque as well.
Loot
Last year I said I would be coming back this year with a bigger paycheck. It’s funny how despite it being bigger, it disappears just as fast.
As I mentioned before I had to buy the premimum boxes of Arakawa Under the Bridge and Persona -Trinity Soul- to get the priority tickets. As I haven’t seen either show, I guess now would be as good time as ever to check it out.
First off, the Premium Edition’s really just mean about 13 episodes plus an artbook and episode summaries. While it’s not THAT impressive, I do think the little interviews with the cast are pretty neat. Thus the Arakawa box is extremely similar to the Toradora box set my friend Robert purchased last year with everything mentioned in the above sentences. The most notable thing for me besides that is that the show also has the Blu-Ray versions, so I’ll actually be using the Blu-Ray feature of my PS3 for once.
As for Persona -Trinity Soul- …
How does I summon Persona?
I actually didn’t end up getting that in my bag. Instead, I found Pandora Hearts Vol. 1 and 2, something which, after checking Sawashiro-san’s voice roles, Sawashiro-san wasn’t involved in. At all. At first, I considered telling them of this mistake, but since I’ve heard bad stuff about Persona anyway, I figured to just run with it. Unlike the previous Arakawa box, the art book in both Pandora Hearts volumes are exclusively that. Art books. No interviews, only a few side comments by the original mangaka and the anime staff. Kind of disappointing considering Kawasumi Ayako is in this show, I would’ve liked to read about her. Oh well.
Also of note is that I got a free Laharl Prinny plushie with Pandora Hearts since the purchase equated to $70. I also got some Prinny bands, which I have no idea what to do with. Cool beans, dood.
Daryl also got this Miku/Corolla seat cushion as well, but forgot it in my hotel room. He just let me keep it.
And of course…figures. I had bought 3 total, but since one of them is ridiculously huge, and I only had enough room to carry one as a carry-on in the plane, I sent two home with Nick, which I will later have mailed to me on a later date. As for the one I brought with me…
Awe of She.
It’s Alter’s Dizzy figure from Guilty Gear XX Accent Core. Of the three that I got, I think it’s the best one I bought. It was also the most expensive one I bought at $250, because the other venders had already sold out of the other ones (one sold for $190, another for $220). Luckily, Shirukii gave me almost half of it to cover for it, so I only spent $140 for it.
First off, the wings must be attached. I felt like I was going to break her applying so much pressure, but I think it’s because I’ve never really held a figure like that before. The wings take some work to get in, but seem pretty snug afterwards and don’t look like they’re going to fall out. They each weigh about the same, therefore balance. If anything, the most fragile parts of the figure are Dizzy’s bangs, they seem pretty long and weak, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem even if it tips over. All in all, I think Dizzy looks pretty damn sexy.
HI DIZZY!
Also, she doesn’t wear underwear. Someone needs to confirm for me if this was true in Guilty Gear or not, since I don’t have a copy to play right now.
Lastly, I started wandering to this one booth that, among stuff like figures, sold Weiss Schwarz cards (more info on Weiss Schwarz here). In particular, it sold the Melty Blood packs. If I remember correctly, every day until Day 4, I bought a pack before the day was done, until finally…
I caved and bought a box. Between that and getting the limited edition MB: Actress Again Box at another vender, I thought getting a bunch of cards would be more fun.
Not to mention I bought a custom structure deck from a different booth that had a theme of Akiha, maids, and Miyako; the structure deck itself contained an english translation of the “How to play guide” as well. That particular booth was also cool in that they let me choose one card from a big binder of misc. Weiss Schwarz cards to keep. My choice?
Oh Itsuwa, your tits and middriff are wonderful
Besides that, from what I can tell, it seems holofoil cards are even rarer to come accross in Weiss Schwarz packs. I only got this V. Akiha card, but then again I’m not sure what constitutes rare in Weiss Schwarz, so that’s something I’ll need to look up later. The box also came with a few sleeves (with the booster’s cover art on the back, no less), so I was able to put it in there. My only real regret after buying these cards is that I expected to get a Ryougi card somewhere in there, then I remembered Kara no Kyoukai has it’s own separate booster. Fuck.
Said V. Akiha card.
And that’s pretty much it. I’ll be leaving my other figures a surprise until I receive those and review those later. Until then, I’m going to stare lovingly at my Dizzy figure…while I’m in bed…
Standard 1st intro episode is standard, but it looks good so far. I don’t follow the manga, however, and it seems it gets pretty bad later. Still, adventures of black haired Accelerator fighting ghosts while having daddy issues with Satan doesn’t sound too bad.
Not to inject too much of my personal life into this since this isn’t my fucking blog (even though…it kinda is…), but I’m in the US Air Force training to become a Security Forces member (aka Cop/Light Infantry) and had to go to Camp Bullis, Texas in order to finish my training so that I can graduate. What this meant for me (and you, I guess) is that I’m in a secluded area that doesn’t possess any connection I can use short of this little Cyber Zone Cafe they have on the 1st floor of my dorm for $5 an hour or so, that I couldn’t watch anything than what I already had on my HD, and was cut off from chatting with Shirukii or any of my other friends on Steam. Living in a world without internet sucks.
Oh, that meant no Marvel either. So I’m even worse than I was before.
What I did to kill time while being disconnected from the interbutt for 3 2 weeks (because I then found a way to access shit):
Weaboo-con (Mizuumi-con)
Okay, so technically I wasn’t completely cut off from the internet the entire time: I took a taxi back to San Antonio and headed to Our Lady of the Lake University to check out their little anime convention.
My thoughts? It’s a University Anime Convention, what else are you really going to expect? Animu-songs blasting through the food court area, idiots yelling out variations of “The Game” everywhere, “original” cosplays of human female versions of Pokemon and Inuyasha characters. Yup, it’s just like your high-school Japanese club where everyone who came almost immediately started talking about how cool Naruto is. But, all in all, I thought it was a good weekend waster, and it sorta kinda made me more excited for Anime Expo later this year.
Guests of Honor at Mizuumi-con consisted of Cristina Valenzuela (Vee), Jack Desena and Jessie Flower from Avatar: The Last Airbender (inb4 it’s not anime), and…two other people whom I don’t remember. I think one of them was in Cristina’s VA club or something. The other lady was the chocobo in the Final Fantasy Unlimited Dub. All of them had a different focused panel or event that was their personal thing: Flower and Desena had a “Superfun Time Panel” which effectively turned into a voice acting workshop, which was nice if only for the information about what to do during voice acting, while Cristina Vee had a mini-concert where she sang covers of OPs and EDs. She signed autographs afterwards, and I decided to get her to sign my BBCS Manual since I already got her to sign my BBCT manual back at AX. They all had a panel later where most of them either asked all the VA’s a question, or Cristina a question. Because she’s hot.
At the very least I snagged something on the way out: a Saber Alter figma that will look lovely fighting my Saber Lily figma. Fate figma will just stay in her box or something. I’ll take pictures of her when I get back home or something.
Oh, and the game room: I found out later there was a MvC3 tournament and some setups there, but by the time I found out it was already too late and I couldn’t get in on casuals. However, a random Super Mario Kart 8-man single-elimination tournament was going on, and because I apparently was the only one who had ever played it for an extensive amount of time, all of these Double Dash fags got smoked. Especially my last match, I decided to choose Rainbow Road for the course. Problem, casual?
A winner is I.
Watched: Gundam Unicorn – Episode 3
Holy shit, I don’t know why I put off watching this for so long, I remember how excited I was just to see the second one.
Anyways, besides the obligatory PEW PEW LASERZ expected of a Gundam series (which by they way, there is an abundant amount of in this episode), we further see Banagher’s character develop to sympathize with soldiers on Zeon’s side of the conflict, specifically Marida whom he is starting to develop a fellow-Newtype relationship with in somewhat the same vein as Amuro and Lalah from the original series, though without any romantic implications, which is fine to me. Banagher also experiences his first personal losses in the form of Daguza, his pseudo-mentor father figure, and Gilboa, the man whose family he had spent time with during his capture; though a Zeon soldier, Banagher knew neither he, nor Marida were any different than any other person, and Gilboa’s death at Banagher’s own hands during his blind rage affected him enough to black out during the atmospheric entry to Earth immediately after realizing what he had done. How this will affect Banagher later, especially when it comes to fighting should it affect that too, will be my focal point of interest next episode: Banagher already didn’t want to kill any of the Zeon’s soldiers until Daguza was killed by Full Frontal, at which point he had wanted to kill him at the point of disregarding his own safety. Honestly, he’ll probably just angst about it for a bit and go back to kicking ass with Unicorn.
Oh Amuro Banagher, I can see time!
Also, I’ve forgotten how epic the music gets sometimes. Particularly the tracks where Banagher has his Newtype moment with Marida, and the last track that plays when Banagher is chasing Full Frontal into the atmosphere. And merry-go-round somehow got stuck in my head, even if it’s not that great of a song.
Watched: Infinite Stratos – 12 [END]
>Funnel at point blank
>dodge that shit and abduct childhood friend for sex
Japan won? The fuck? And here I was thinking there’d be some cop-out harem shit like in Kampfer.
Also, retarded plot is retarded.
To aru Majutsu no Index II – 24 [END]
>get hyped for the appearance of GROUP cause of the OP
>they’re in for all of two episodes
Fucking JC Staff. Also, I now realize that I love Awaki. Dat Midriff, dat bandage top. I want to take it off with my teeth.
Played: Dissidia Duodecim 012: Final Fantasy
Me in the back
A big game that I was looking forward to this month, Dissidia 012 is essentially to Dissidia what SSFIV or BB: Continuum Shift is to SFIV or BB: Calamity Trigger. The fighting gameplay plays exactly the same as the original, with the addition of Assist Attacks and another use for your EX Gauge called EX Revenge, which allows you to slow down time for a short period to inflict a Brave/HP attack on your opponent at the expense of your fully charged EX Gauge (You can’t EX Burst once you use it). Notably, Dissidia adds some new characters as well, all of whom are unlocked from the start for Vs. mode: Lightning from FFXIII, Vaan from FFXII, Laguna from FFVIII, Yuna from FFX, Kain from FFIV, and Tifa from FFVII.
The main storyline revolves around the 12th cycle of the war between Cosmos and Chaos (1st Dissidia was the 13th and final cycle in the war), in which we’re to believe these new characters took part of, and that some characters weren’t necessarily on the Good/Light side as they were in Dissidia (i.e. Terra, Tidus, and Cloud are on Chaos’ side, while Jecht sided with Cosmos). It’s fanfiction fare like the first game was, but at least they actually use the Manikin’s from the story to create better plot. Also, story mode uses a world exploration system similar to the other FF games. Your reward (from what I’ve played so far) after completing the main scenario is to play Dissidia again, but with a few changes: for one, they use the world exploration system, which lead to some interesting “retcons” where the characters talk about fighting Manikin’s of people they’ve never seen before (since you fight the manikins of the newer characters as well as in the new stages). The final scenario, Shade Impulse, is also changed in that you can get the cinematic encounters with each of the main enemies without having the corresponding character fighting him (i.e. I can fight Kefka with Cloud and it will still show Terra’s cinematic with him). The ending credit clips are different, as well as the track that is used, possibly including some tracks from FFVI: After Years and FFXIII (I wouldn’t know since I haven’t played either).
Overall, this has been my biggest time waster, what I would be caught playing if I wasn’t playing Marvel (and hey look at that, I don’t have Marvel available). Definitely worth getting if you haven’t played the original Dissidia since it is essentially the more complete version. It’s also made me rediscover what I liked about Final Fantasy and I’ll probably actually play FFXIII now.
An action game with RPG mechanics similar to Monster Hunter…that’s pretty much why I decided to pick it up. I’ve only played a little bit so far, but it plays at a much faster pace than Monster Hunter does, which is actually pretty nice coming from someone who has put in a lot of hours into Portable 2nd G. Only problem is that there are only two weapons types (or at least there are at my point in the game) to choose from: big ass sword or big ass rifle. But you can switch into either one mid combat, as well as combo into their transformations. I’ll probably come back to it and maybe dedicate myself a little more to it if I find some people to play multiplayer with, thought that might be hard compared to Monster Hunter players.
Played: Monster Hunter Portable 3rd
Fuck, now I have to play Peace Walker too.
I’ll be honest: I haven’t touched the damn Switch Axe from MH3 because I’m so used to fucking shit up with a hammer. Also, it’s fucking Monster Hunter with MH3 Tri Monsters. I haven’t fought many of them yet, but I plan to. And also fuck them up with my hammer. Hammer > all weapons. Prove me wrong.
Played: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Final Mix
mfw Critical Mode
I’m not very far into this either, but I can at least tell you I’m playing on Critical Mode and am still working on the beginning of Terra’s storyline. All in all, though, I like the gameplay in this game much more than 358/2 Days. Also, fuck Critical Mode. Fuck Critical Mode in KH2: Final Mix+ and fuck it in here as well.
Played: Blazblue: Continuum Shift II
My HD Sprites…my beautiful HD sprites are…
This actually came out a few weeks after I had already been at Bullis, and I was able to get it during the weekend when I took the bus back to my main base. I had actually been anticipating it for a while, mainly because I wanted to practice the combos my main character (Hazama) uses since his older ones no longer work thanks to nerfs. Now, I never played the portable version of the game, but it should still be pretty nice like the Guilty Gear PSP games right?
But wow…I REALLY didn’t think it’d look this…mediocre. I can understand they’re basically just compressing the HD sprites from the 360/PS3 versions but it’s to the point where I can’t even tell where Noel’s face is aside from the assumption it’s below her big ass hat. That’s not the only thing either, the music is pretty compressed as well, even with headphones it doesn’t sound that great. The voices are also terribly compressed, and some characters you can’t even hear because of it, specifically Jin’s whenever he says “Kokujin: Yukikaze.” Yes, I admit I’m nitpicking, especially with a PSP version of the game, but I really wouldn’t play this version of the game unless I really didn’t have a PS3 or 360.
As for my original intention to learn the newer combos? Most of the challenge mode combos are incredibly simple and leniant due to it being played on a D-Pad as opposed to a stick, so none of them are too overly complicated to do. While this is great when you’re playing on this version of the game, it’s far from any of the stuff you’ll see on any gamechariot stream of CSII. So no, I really didn’t learn anything new other than a simple 1.7k combo that will do decent only if the opponent is cornered since it will cause wall bounce. tl:dr, shit sucks and it’s not Arcade perfect.
Also, I fucking hate Platinum. I hate hate hate hate HATE her.
The only other game I have now is The 3rd Birthday, which I will give a play sometime this week. May or may not write about it.
So what’s next? I’ve got one more week to finish up here at Camp Bullis, then I go back to my main dorm and fucking get to play Marvel again. Also going to get my stick Dual-modded this weekend if I can. A few more weeks and I can go home and play with my toys and shit.
mfw I finally get to go home
Fun fact before I go: Misuzu is voiced by Sailor Jupiter.
From left to right: Kuno Esama, Lonesome Tunnel Hum These Strong Arm Drones, and Harm Reduction. Albums so obscure I had to actually buy them, madness!
Oso is a tough band to classify, at their core I would call them folk, but they incorporate the weird time signature shifts that you often see in math rock, and they’re more technical than any folk band I’ve ever heard. The incorporation of a violin is what initially drew me to this band, but they soon proved to be much more than your ordinary rock band with a violin, because those suck.
If you want an idea of what these guys are about, there’s probably no better place to start than with my personal favourite song, Mina Bajor:
Starting out with a funky guitar and violin riff backed by the soft tappings of a hi-hat, the song eases into a vocal chorus which quickly breaks down into rising violin based crescendo that explodes into the foreground and slowly sheds layers until the song gracefully fades out.
Special thanks to the band’s bassist Andrew Fedders for personally mailing these albums out to me. The band is on touring and recording hiatus for now, but I sincerely hope that they take up the torch again one day, I’d love to see them live.
…except when they come out with this bullshit. Not only is the stage way too white for my taste (example of stages that have either way to bright or dark colors that make it difficult to play in), the fact that they’re showing another Legends stage that’s not quite new, but a nod to Legends 2, especially since just 2 days earlier they had cancelled it, is even more of a slap in the face than the announcement of UMvC3 itself.
). Feeling satisfied, I then went on to explore the dealer’s a little bit before meeting up with Nick, Su, Spenser, and Kaushik to go eat at Chipotle, which was orgasmic for a couple of reasons:
