My first Let’s Play video.

I’m going to be doing a playthrough (with commentary, of course) of Ecco the Dolphin: The Tides of Time. This is my first vid. Enjoy!

EDIT: Be sure to hit up my Youtube page here for more.

Full Metal Alchemist (Mostly the manga)

As always, there might be spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ah, Full Metal Alchemist. I remember this anime being the second or third anime I ever watched. I enjoyed it a great deal. There was plenty of action, and an underlying mystery behind everything. Not to mention, Edward Elric had that clap thing. Now, at this point in time (around 2003 or 2004), I hadn’t read the manga. In fact, I hadn’t read any manga at all. I didn’t start really reading until maybe a month or two back in an attempt to expand my horizons. Naturally, Full Metal Alchemist was one of the first on my list. Going into the manga, I thought I had a good grip on what was going to happen plotwise. I was dead wrong. The manga was quite different from what I had seen in the anime. It was better.

The biggest difference between the FMA the anime (the original) and the manga is the plot. From what I remember of the anime, the plot revolved around reviving their mother and getting their original bodies back. The manga follows that same basic concept. The secondary plot (the homunculii creating a giant Philosopher’s Stone) is still there as well. The plot is explored in greater detail in the manga, however. Ed and Al, of course, are searching for a way to retrieve their original bodies. There’s an entire conspiracy within the government to manufacture Philospher’s Stones for use in war (not to mention plenty of Nightmare Fuel when the manufactured soldiers are involved). There’s also a plot crafted by Father’s, the creator and leader of the homunculii, to use Amestris (the entire country) as one giant transmutation circle to create his own philospher’s stone. The latter is handled exceptionally well, with very subtle foreshadowing. In general, there’s a lot going on, and the manga does a really good job of tying it all together.

The characters are explored in greater detail as well. Roy Mustang is still the magnificent bastard we know and love, but he isn’t completely a bastard. Armstrong is naive, Envy’s an asshole, etc. The manga really does the main characters’ distinct personalities justice, and also takes the time to flesh them out. It also introduces new characters that weren’t in the old anime, such as Ling and his crew, Major General Armstrong (his sister), and Father. They’re not forced on us, as the manga has more than enough time to introduce them to the reader and tell their stories.

The art is actually pretty decent. The backgrounds are awesome, but that comes as no surprise to me, considering the fact that the manga sees a monthly release. My only real gripe is the way the characters are drawn; they’re sort of…chibi-ish. This makes things even more weird (for me) when serious shit goes down (imagine, if you will, a serious Bugs Bunny repeatedly igniting the air around Elmer Fudd…okay, okay, it’s not that cartoonish). Still, I couldn’t picture them looking any different. To me, it’s just…off-putting at times, but it’s not necessarily bad. If it was presented by anyone other than Hiromu Arakawa, I wouldn’t buy it.

All in all, I would recommend this manga for anyone just getting into…well, reading manga. If you already read manga, take a look at this one. You won’t be disappointed. Also, there’s a new(ish) FMA anime out called Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It follows the manga panel for panel (well, everything except the first episode does). If you’d rather see the animated version of the manga, check it out at AnimeCrazy.net.

In other unrelated news, I’m going to attempt reading through Twilight. I don’t like the book or anything; I just haven’t seen how bad (or, god forbid, good) it really is. It’s easy to listen to someone tell you about how bad a shit-encrusted bathroom smells in passing; it’s infinitely worse to be the janitor, who has to experience it firsthand.

Nothing personal. It’s just revenge

Afro Samraui. Epic.

With that said, I’ve been wondering if I should start doing reviews of anime and manga here. Well, George and Bubbles would do the anime reviews since I don’t watch that much. I just read a lot.

X-Men 2: The Clone Wars (and more importantly, Nightcrawler)

No, the title isn’t a crossover of X-Men and Star Wars; it’s the name of the second X-Men game for the Sega Genesis. On a whim, I thought I’d play this game yesterday, and I’m glad I did. I didn’t remember much from when I first played it (in 1995 or 96, around when it came out), so I was completely surprised by the sheer amount of badassery, especially how awesome Nightcrawler was.

Here’s a guy who can not only teleport, but kill people in the resulting poof when he pops out. It’s like, someone’s aiming a gun at you, and then BAMF, BAMF, he’s killed in a fiery explosion. Even if that misses, the flying kick won’t. His flying kick seeks the nearest target, and punishes indiscriminately. Sometimes, things get kicked for no reason. I was trying to kick this red jumpsuit ninja who was somersaulting right at me. Nightcrawler’s kick caused the power to go out within a five block radius for two hours. The authorities explained away the incident as a “freak accident”. When my computer flashed back to life, I got a screen that said, “You win the presidency of the WORLD!”, followed by an article that chronicled the harrowing events of a nuclear meltdown following the sudden unexplained appearance of a three-toed footprint etched into the metal of the reactor’s casing. In fact, Nightcrawler just appeared in my doorway, threatining to “kick [my] head off so hard, the universe would implode” if I failed to write this before the thermonuclear bomb he planted underneath my chair went off.

I bet that all of reality would be erased if he and Lui Kang clashed. Whoever wins, WE LOSE.

Xenophobic/racist tendencies.

http://banetwork.deviantart.com/journal/26001919/

The question has been asked and an interesting answer is awaiting.
Copy pasta:

“Ok, I was reading a post by yahoo about the ncaa meeting on yahoo and a couple other sites. and i decided to look the comments… which was a very bad idea… most of the comments were racist in nature and they started the whole most black people are on welfare thing again and provided skewed stats. I glaze over the comments cause people say alot of ignorant stuff on line til you confront them directly… in other words cowards.

How ever I have been noticing more and more racial talk since we have a black president… and i hear all these names flying around about him short of dropping the N bomb…. I am starting to think that even if he succeeds and fixes the economy, race relations in the US will take a step backwards.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? “

Click here to respond

Note: If you don’t have a DeviantArt account just reply here and I’ll post it on the page for you along with any gained replies.

My Brute

Is a pretty addictive thing.
It appears I have found a new toy.

Neoholocaust show on June 19th

Opie, from Neoholocaust, got a huge show coming up on
June 19 @ Jackrabbits.
Misstress Juliya from Uranium is going to be there with Century Media, MetalBlade, and Roadrunner Executives.

The show is 10 dollars, June 19 @ JackRabbits.

If you missed the show the first time, now is your chance to catch another one. I can guarantee you, this will be an amazing event. Also, if you missed the disclaimer the last two times,

“First and foremost, about our name. Our name does not represent the genocide of people, or mass-murder in any degree. Our name represents the murder of music. For a long time I keep hearing bands saying to their guitarists that their song they made up doesn’t fit the band’s, “Style.” Well, Neoholocaust wants to destroy segregated music and allow any style to be played with anything, because when it all comes down to it… It is the music that matters, not the style of music.” – Neoholocaust.

Seriously guys, don’t be asinine.

online radio~

Turns out, our very own George Everyman is an online radio DJ. Check out the stream.

On a completely unrelated note, huh?

Danielle eats something disgusting

Okay, so while hopping around Facebook and Youtube, turns out that a friend of mine has a web cast where she eats some pretty disgusting things. Well, not normally disgusting but this particular time her expressions are priceless. Check it out!

Tatsunoko vs Capcom

I’ve actually known about this for a while but am only now doing a post.

This is definitely going to be the game to play. Tatsunoko coming with many a childhood hero like Gatchaman, which some of you may know as G-Force, Hurricane Polymer and Casshern. Even the quite recent Karas will be making an appearance. Capcom is bringing in their iconic characters. Such as Ryu and Chun Li from Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Alex from Street Fighter Third Strike, Yami from Okami, and Megaman.

Here are a few intros for the Tatsunoko chars:

I won’t do Capcom intros since you can find info on any of their stuff by researching Street Fighter, Megaman or any of the still popular titles. However, I will give this:

A list of playable characters.