Saturday, February 12, 2011

Hiatus recap

k so... wow I haven't posted since October. That last post was on the Red Comet preview too, wtf. Neways regarding that, Red Comet was like... 3 months ago. The next episode, The Ghost of Laplace, will be out on DVD/BD sometime next month. As usual, it's going to be all kinds of awesome, again.

Guess I'll outline what I've been doing (and not doing) in a checklist format or something:


 1.
     So as many of you may not know, my major is Computer Engineering. For this program at my uni, I'm required to alternate between study terms and co-op terms. What this means in layman terms is that I go to school for 4 months, and then work for 4 months. Yes that's right, I get raped in school for 4 months, and then earn money to get raped again in the next 4 months.

     Currently I have finished my first study term and I've already been working for a month and a half-ish. I consider myself quite lucky as it's really hard to find a job for your first term. That was my first interview ever and they were even looking for a mid to upper year student. At first I was thoroughly confused at their code, but now I'm fairly use to it.

     So my role is Junior Developer and I'm responsible for developing and maintaining their testing framework. The company is built around a business application which has X number of features. The purpose of the tester program is to test as many of the X amount of features to ensure that they're working perfectly and not giving random errors. I develop code to test more of the X amount of features (mainly by copying off their code or Google :| ). The main tester runs every night, so I come in the next day and try to reproduce the bugs on the actual application. I log it and the senior devs get it fixed hella fast (they're friggin geniuses).

     That's basically what I'm doing and will be doing until May. For future co-op terms I'll need to be writing long ass reports about things which are probably irrelevant to the term itself.

2.
     So what did I want to write about here. Ah yes, May'n. Here's a little brief summary of my story with May'n. I first heard her songs when Macross Frontier was airing in 2008. I didn't like the character Sheryl Nome then (still don't really) and thus I didn't like her singing. The twist is that Sheryl has a separate seiyuu, Aya Endo, for the voicing role and May'n sings her songs.

    Fast forward a few years and my music preference has changed. Thus May'n's songs are suddenly amazing. I blame pink monsoon and Universal Bunny, two of her songs from the Macross Frontier movie, The False Songstress. so I went Googling all her albums and got Styles and May'n☆Street, as well as her Shinjitemiru single. Now I'm hooked.


     Her second album If You... will be released on the 23rd, so I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't reached the point like most people where you worship your favourite artist. But I do find her singing pretty cool.


3.
     So of course, how can Kouen be Kouen without Gundam? I've been a fan of the SD Gundam G Generation series, a series of Gundam games which lets you build your armies and complete missions. This game is one of those turn-based square tile map games. I can't really name any similar games off the top of my head that people actually play.

     Anyways I'm pretty excited for SD Gundam G Generation World because 00 just ended and Unicorn is airing. Thus the 00 units would be up to date, save for A Wakening of the Trailblazer which will only include Trailblazer Setsuna and the 00 Qan[T]. Unfortunately, Unicorn will be limited as well as they also explicitly state that Unicorn will only cover up to the 2nd OVA. Although they did include the Delta Plus which I guess arguably was present in the 2nd OVA. Although for people who actually play the series, they've been including a rigged secret final boss which you can play with after you beat the game. In Spirits it was a rigged Turn A (well, Turn A is rigged in the right hands), in Wars it was a rigged 0 Gundam in the RX-78-2 colours. That was quite surprising as the 0 Gundam is actually far inferior compared to the 00 Raiser. Guess secret boss units avoid all logic. I'm not sure if they're going to continue that trend, but if they did, my vote is on the Gundam Unicorn Banshee. But that will go against their whole statement of Unicorn up to OVA 2 only.

     So in the previous iteration, Wars, I would say it was pretty disappointing. They took out characters, units, and limited what characters you can have piloting and what your bridge bunnies are going to be. I mean, for all you SEED fans, they took out Yzak, Dearka, and Nicol. All variations of them, even the GSD versions, even though they friggin appear in the little in-game cutscenes before level. Cagalli's also nowhere to be found.

     In contrast, it seems that World will be trying to fix that up. Apparently that whole "Pilot" stat is removed now, which will hopefully let you put any character as a pilot (Fuck yeah Audrey in the Unicorn?). They've also tried to include as much units from as much series as possible, which is always a good thing. They've also included a new custom character feature, but you can only choose between faceless characters in different normal suits. But I guess they'll have a wide variety of normal suits to choose from. 

     But with the recent magazine scan it seems they made it a little bit easier. Ships are now smaller and you launch your units from the middle square tile of the ship, not from the catapults like they use to do it. Also, before your units will surrender when their mothership was destroyed, they removed that. As well if you do blow up your ship, you can repair it after the mission in exchange for capital. Unlike previous games where destruction of anything, unit or ship will result in it being permanently loss.

     SD Gundam G Generation World will be released on the 24th. Yes that week is already turning out to be quite awesome.

4.
     What else... ah right Fate/Zero. For whoever has heard about Fate/Stay Night, I guess you've also heard about its light novel prequel, Fate/Zero. This time around instead of the protagonist being Emiya Shirou, it's his father Emiya Kiritsugu. For those of you who thought FSN was dark just because people did not die if they are killed, I'll have you know that Fate/Zero is in contrast, written by Urobuchi Gen, not Nasu. Also, FZ has a lot more adult themes compared to FSN's more teenage themes. By that I mean they're going to up the level and badassery and assholery fitting for adults. FSN was a war where the Masters were mainly high schoolers, FZ is a war between adults. Thus more dark and etc. (Save for Waver who is a teenager Master)


     The Fate/Zero light novels have been released for a while, and people were expecting an anime series. Well guess what, that anime series will be airing sometime in 2011. Yes, it will be fucking epic. You thought FSN was epic with its Servant lineup. Fate/Zero's Servant lineup will blow your minds out. (Yes Saber and Grillgamesh will be in it)


Anyhow, epic Fate/Zero anime, stay tuned.


5.
     Hmm what should I end with? Oh right. So if any of you have a clue what's been going on with anime, you'd know that it's rapidly declining. Every season has been nothing but moe lolis and boobs, kinda hard to find a good show now. So what better time to slip in a monster disguised as a mahou shoujo anime? Yes that's right, the anime I'm watching this season is a MAHOU SHOUJO ANIME. The typical little loli girl becomes a magical girl show. Think Sailor Moon or Nanoha. Except the twist is that, like Fate/Zero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is written by Urobuchi Gen. In case I haven't outlined how much of an asshole Gen is (probably the case here) let me quote a little excerpt from Fate/Zero.


Urobuchi Gen wants to write stories that can warm people's hearts.
Those who knew about my creative history would probably furrow their brows and think this is a cold joke. Actually, I couldn't completely believe it, either. Because when I start typing out words on the keyboard, the stories my brain comes up with are always full of madness and despair.
In fact, I wasn't like this before. I've often written pieces that didn't have a perfect ending, but by the last chapter the protagonist would still possess a belief that 'Although there will be many hardships to come, I still have to hold on'.
But from I don't know when, I can no longer write works like this.
I am full of hatred towards men's so-called happiness, and had to push the characters I poured my heart out to create into the abyss of tragedy.
For all things in the world, if we just leave them alone and pay them no attention, they are bond to advance in a negative direction.
Just like no matter what we do we can't stop the universe from getting colder. It is only a world that is created through a compilation of 'progresses of common sense'; it can never escape the bondage of its physical laws.
 
I'll just leave it at that.

(This is probably a tl;dr)


 Summary of Epic Things To Come
  1. Feb 16th - Kalafina Magia single is released (Ending song to Madoka)
  2. Feb 23rd - May'n's "If You..." album is released
  3. Feb 24th - SD Gundam G Generation World (Fuck yeah!) 
 (Feb 14th will be a regular day. *Snuggles Mittens* ;3) 

3 comments:

  1. Awww I forgot to write about Vindictus and another novel idea which will never be materialized.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Universal Bunny is amaaaaaaaazing.
    And I don't care what you say, Sheryl Nome is awesomesauceynesslyyesyesyay.

    ReplyDelete