Well, there’s not much to update this time around. I finally added a base to the kit so she can now stand on her own and the body and hair is now almost completely finished. All that’s left are small parts, minor details and the eyes… Damn…

The arms are also done, but they won’t be staying put until I glue them on , and it’s not time for that yet. I need to redo some of the pink an the shirt as the paint was a bit uneven in some areas, and I need to add some of the trim. There was also a little problem with the hair as well…

The black looked too harsh for my liking so I put on some lilac underneath to give it a more purple-like effect while keeping a very dark hair colour but the front and back are a little too different now, so I’ll have to redo one to match the other. I think I’ll redo the back to match the front. I think the lighter look is better.

A full front shot shows off the effect I’m trying to get with the hair. I think it’s much better than just solid black. And I put the left arm on this time cos I could hold it in place. Not quite there yet but we’re getting there steadily. Should be finished in a week or so. Maybe even in time for next weeks post. Not 100% sure tho…

Best Show

Another

Despite knowing roughly what the show was going to be about, I didn’t really know what to expect. But what I got was a really great dark show with a good deal of mystery to it and kept making you guess what was going to happen next. Pacing was really good too and it didn’t show it’s hand to often. My only gripe was that it wasn’t a type of mystery show which allows you to play along by providing clues and whatnot along the way but the structure of the story would make that pretty difficult to do effectively so it played its cards close to its chest and revealed next to nothing, which I was OK with!

Rinne no Lagrange almost made it as it was many times better than I had expected (which was quite low) but it lost out due to the really abrupt and unsatisfactory “wait till season 2″ ending…

[runners up: Rinne no Lagrange]

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Worst Show

Kill Me Baby

Some 4Koma mangas work well as an anime (Azumanga (naturally), Seitokai Yakuindomo and a handful of others) while others don’t at all. (most of the others).

I had some serious misgivings about the show going into it but I gave it a chance because the 4koma can be entertaining in small doses. But the anime adaptation fell foul to one of the worst crimes any show can commit. It was just plain BORING!! In fact the best thing to come out of it was this youtube video of 2 guys performing the end sequence “dance” in FULL!! Right down to the one handed handstands! There are quite a lot of “attempts” at doing the ending dance which basically means the person lazily does a couple of poses in the likeness of the show and posting a video but these 2 guys ROCKED!!

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Biggest Surprise

Zenki Sesshou Symphogear

There were lots of contenders for this title. There was the aforementioned Rinne no Lagrange, High School DxD which, while not particularly good on its own, made me want to read the novels from which it was based really badly, Mouretsu pirates and the daily lives of high school boys. But in the end, symphogear won it because of one simple fact. It’s essentially a freaking mahou shoujo show. A traditional one at that but somehow, I was able to sit through the whole thing. And I HATE Mahou Shoujo shows. I can’t watch them at all! Nanoha and Madoka are exceptions because they’re not really traditional Mahou Shoujo shows, not by a long shot.

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Biggest Disappointment

Guilty Crown

Well this was a collapse of epic proportions! At the half way mark for the show, it became painfully apparent what the show wanted to be… It wanted to be the next Code Geass and it wasn’t even trying to hide the fact!!! There’s just one problem. Geass lived (and died) on the strength of its characters and the cast of Guilty Crown had no strength to begin with. They are the most apathetic cast I have seen in any show for a long while and it’s almost impossible to like any of them or feel any kind of sympathy towards them. The few who were likeable were killed off for character “growth” and plot advancement (poor haru…).
Most of the cast were ones who lament over their own situation while ignoring the fact that it was they themselves who put them in that situation in the first place ( The Kuhoin sexual favours thing comes to mind!) and even the ending was nonsensical and bullshit, just like Geass!! With such a massive handicap, there was no way that GC was going to reach the heights of the best of Geass, but at the same time, it never plumbed to the same depths either, but it wasn’t able to fall the same distance in the first place…

The rest

• Gundam Age seems to just be going through the motions now, pretty much like myself!
• I wasn’t a fan of the original but sat through it regardless. Aquarion Evol looks like it’ll be the same story, though I’m really looking forward to the inevitable release of the DX Chogokin toy so I can pose it next to my original Aquarion. It should be fully transformable too!
• Only half of the mini-arcs in amagami SS+  actually added anything to their stories. The Tsukasa, Ai and Sae arcs were nothing but filler. Still YAY Rihoko, YAY Kaoru and WOW Haruka!!!
• I still can’t believe that Shakugan no Shana is finally over!! Just wish that VIZ released more of the books instead of just the first 2. I want to know how much the anime changed. The first arc was completely different! (though the movie followed it more closely)
• On the other hand, I’m glad that Zero no Tsukaima is over. That show overstayed its welcome!
• Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam had a similar problem as Guilty crown by having antagonists who they wanted you to sympathise with but ended up getting nothing but my disdain. They all got off far too lightly.
• I should like Chie more than the others in Persona 4 due to her being voiced by Hocchan!! But I’m a Rise fan all the way! And this was a good adaptation. The makers of the Valkyria Chronicles anime should take notes regarding this and Tales of the Abyss.
• I really want to read the novels of High School DxD  now!
• What the hell was that ending to Mirai Nikki?  They couldn’t be bothered to animate a few more pages worth? Admittedly, the ending to the manga kinda sucked, but still!!
• Papa no iukoto wo kikinasai  was really meh
• There were some seriously funny moments in the daily lives of high school boys.
• Ano Natsu de matteru  wanted to be the next Onegai Teacher so badly!!! But none of the characters could come close to the greatness that is Kazami Mizuho! Lemon was still brilliant though, just like Ichigo in Onegai Twins. ufufufufufufu.
• I’m still surprised by how entertained I am by mouretsu pirates!
• I have no idea why I watched Inu x Boku SS
• Maybe it’s because I’ve been Nisio Isin’d out after Bakemonogatari and Katanagatari but I didn’t really enjoy the prose heavy nisemonogatari as much as I though I would.

That’s it for last season. Here’s what I’m looking forward to this season. But before that, DAMN YOU NAGANO!! Why the hell are you working on a damn movie? Your stories are much better suited to a longer TV series or at least several OVA episodes. Why did you have to make GothicMade into a movie?? Did the Five Star Stories not teach you anything?

Must watch!!

AKB0048

Dare I try to do the same joke in 2 successive preview posts? Nah…

For real this time!

Accel World

If there’s just one show I have to watch this season, this would be it. Admittedly, I only picked up on it when the figmas for Silver crow and Kuroyukihime were shown (first time in ages I thought a figma was good for something). I was curious about the designs, especially the battle form for Kuroyukihime and ended up reading some of the translated manga and then that went on to the partially translated 1st volume of the light novel and the completed 2nd volume. After that, I was pretty much hooked, though I have to admit that I’m looking forward to the adaptation of the authors other work, Sword Art Online even more!!

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia

I picked up the manga on a whim ages ago but quickly fell for the quirky story and I think it’ll work well as an anime so I’m looking forward to seeing how this one does.

Saint Seiya Omega

Saint Seiya is one of the classics which I really enjoyed reading so I’m definitely checking this new show out. Still, there are a few things which bug me, like Seiya seeming to be a proper gold knight. What the heck? Oh well, if I can shout PEGASUS RYUSEIKEN!! then I’ll be happy!

Saki: Achiga-hen episode of side A

Who the hell thought up that title?? Anyway, this is a sidestory involving a completely different mahjong team from the main story so sadly, we won’t get to see much of Saki, Nodoka or the others which means no Rinshan Kaihou (which isn’t actually worth that much in terms of points but is cool for dramatic effect!). Still, can’t say no to more Saki!!

Fate\zero

Continuing straight from where the first season ended, this is more of a part 2 than a full second season so it gets in by default.

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Interesting but Meh

Medaka Box

An adaptation of a Shonen Jump manga written by Nisio Isin of the -gatari books fame… This is a 4th wall breaking self parody manga which basically lampoons any and every shonen trapping you can think of. And that’s part of the problem. The manga starts off as a rather entertaining comedy gag manga and then changes to a rather poor battle manga. The most recently completed arc turned it into a high school romance manga, all the while the characters do their utmost to explain away all the cliches of the shonen mangas and uses them in the story.
The 2 biggest worries I have about the show are that it’s a manga adaptation from Gainax (who generally suck at adapting works to anime. Mahoromatic, anyone?) and that, even in manga form, Nisio Isin really REALLY loves prose and monologues. We can get pages where over 2/3rds of it is covered with speech bubbles in this manga and sometimes, it just goes on and on. Luckily, there’s a lot more movement in here than, say, nisemonogatari so at least things will happen in an episode beyond 2 or more characters sitting around and talking for 20 minutes. Still, I’m wary of this show. It has a good base, but there’s plenty to go wrong with it.

Eureka Seven AO

Mecha shows usually go straight into the “must watch” category. But here’s the thing, I really REALLY didn’t like Eureka Seven. The TV series collapsed into a pit of nonsensical ramblings late into its run and the less said about the movie the better. Being a sequel to that show actually hurts this one more than it helps. It’s only the mecha element which is making me watch it.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? of the dead

Can’t say that the first season left a memorable impression, or any impression at all for that matter. But who cares, MORE EUCLIWOOD HELLSCYTHE!!!!

Sankarea

I’m more curious about how this adaptation will work more than anything else. The source manga is a little disturbing afterall. A girl coming back to life as a zombie and craving human flesh gets taken in by a buy who fancied her when she was alive? There’s more to it, of course, but if I had to choose, I prefer Tasogare Otome x Amnesia over this.

Acchi Kochi

After reading a little of the translated manga, I found it rather funny and entertaining so the anime is at least worth a look!

Lupin III Fujiko Mine to iu Onna

Another classic anime given another series. While I’ve never gotten into the original TV series of Lupin 3rd, I’ve enjoyed  the secret of Mamo and Castle of Cagliostro so being given a chance to watch a modern Lupin series is something I’m going to take!

Ozuma

I’ve never bothered to sit down and take the time to appreciate a Matsumoto Leiji work. Gotta start somewhere!

Jormungand

This show (and the manga) gives me a real dark, Black lagoon vibe to it so that alone makes it worth checking out. And it’s not often you get to see an anime about arms dealers. I bet there’ll be plenty of “gun porn” in here. How accurate they are to the real life weapons is another matter though!

Mysterious Girlfriend X

Oh boy, where to start on this one? A story about a relationship between a buy and girl where they exchange their feelings by the boy swallowing some of the girls drool… I’m not making that up!! The manga itself is actually pretty decent but I just don’t know if it’ll survive the transition to an anime…

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san

A gag anime involving a moe-fied Cthulhu god? I bet there’s going to be some fanservice in there too. Yup, worth checking out!

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Why am I watching this?

Zetman

You have no idea how painful it is for me to put this title here. I’m a huge fan of Katsura Masakazu and his previous works. He also draws some of the best girls in the industry, right up there with Fujishima Kousuke (Oh! My Goddess) and Obata Takeshi (Bakuman & Deathnote). DNA^2 is one of my fave mangas, I loved I’s and Video girl Ai and even Shadow Lady was pretty fun but zetman… I’m still reading it but the problem I have with it is that it lacks structure and the plot doesn’t seem to really be going anywhere! It’s also way darker and more violent than any of his previous works (and that kinda says something). It often feels like Katsura is a completely different person from his previous works and there’s not even a love side story, which was kinda the staple of his other titles.

It also doesn’t help that it looks like the art direction for the anime has completely failed to grab the original art. But I’ll watch it because of the mangaka.

Queens Blade Rebellion

OK, the first 2 seasons weren’t bad, they just weren’t good either. But there was a strong-ish plot behind the mass of tits so it might be worth checking Rebellion out. It’s not like I’ll lose anything other than a little time with this one afterall. But Hyakka Ryouran was way better!

Upotte!

The only reason I’m watching this is because the premise is too stupid for words. A school about girls who are actually guns? WTF????

Shining Hearts: Shiawase no Pan

An anime adaptation of a PSP RPG game where the main selling point seemed to be the fact that the characters were designed by Taka Tony… Well, after being bombarded with a ridiculous number of figures from this game and the previous games, shining tears and Wind and a next to zero chance of localisation, I’m checking this show out just to try and find out what the hell the game is about…

That’s pretty much it from me. I might pick up Hyouka but I doubt I’ll take on Phi Brain 2. seems too much of an investment to put in for 52 eps total and I didn’t think the first season was all that great.

What are you guys all planning to watch?

All images are copyright to their respective owners

This was one of those things which had to be done. I’m still a little amazed that I have this game in my collection seeing as I played an early build back at the Eurogamer Expo last year and hated it with a level of hatred saved for only the most heinous of things.

My original intention was to gleefully ignore the game and let it sink as I was confident that it would. Then I read the reviews and, instead of a critical mauling, I found that some respectable publications, such as Eurogamer and Edge magazine were giving the game very high scores and praising the game while others fell in line with what I was expecting. It was one of the most divisive games I have read up on for a long time and there seemed to be no middle ground. So, I decided to check it out as I was able to acquire a copy without having to pay full retail.

Now, if you’ve been keeping up with the game at all, then there’s nothing much to add. This game is basically Ridge Racer in name only. The mechanics are more in tune with burnout and Split/Second as opposed to the “pure racing” that Ridge Racer Represents. There’s also no Reiko Nagase so you KNOW that this isn’t a canon RR game now!! There are several events available in the game, all of which ram home the point that this is not anything like the Ridge Racer you know. The main one is domination, a standard racing fare with destructible environments, hidden shortcuts and the ability to take out (or “Frag”) rival cars. Next up we have Frag Race, where you just eliminate as many cars as you can in a set time limit; time trial, where the developers make weird stunt tracks with lots of ramps, half-pipes and god knows what else, pepper the track with tokens which shave seconds off your time and just tell you to get to the end within a certain time limit; Drift events, where you drive and perform drifts to accumulate points and extra time and finally, there’s just plain old racing (though this is not a common event).

The unofficial slogan for Unbounded seems to be “Forget everything you knew about Ridge Racer” but it may be more accurate to say forget everything you know about EVERY racing game! And that was part of the problem when I first played it and it seems many others have hit the same wall. The developers of RR:U actually changed the method of drifting in their game to the point where it’s pretty alien and there’s not a single tutorial or set of instructions to explain this in the game! If you haven’t played Unbounded yet, let me say this, if you try to play this game like any other racing game, you will fail HARD!!!
In Unbounded, the handbrake button has been changed to the “drift” buttons and to drift in the game requires you to hold down the button while simultaneously doing the usual steps of release accelerator -> brake -> accelerate like in almost every other arcade racing game. Except that the drift button also slows you down so you need to balance the presses with the other inputs to ensure that you don’t slow down too much or spin. And it’s VERY tricky to do well! My technique is basically down to lightly tap once on the brakes and then continue to tap the drift button repeatedly to maintain the drift and speed. It’s not perfect but it kinda works for most situations and the game is more enjoyable once you break from the ways you are used to. However, there are quite a few other problems which rear their head when you play…

LOVED

• Drifting: As I said above, drifting is very different from other racing games and is quite hard to do. It requires a fair bit more thought and concentration but when you get it right, the feeling is sublime!
• Pure Racing: It may sound odd, considering how the game has been marketed, but for me, the most fun to be had is when you’re on the racing events. Just 7 other cars, you and boost. No shortcuts, no Frags. Just pure racing and it’s here where I think the game excels
• Track editor: the game allows you to make your own tracks and, once you’ve unlocked a number of parts from the main game, it’s pretty in depth! Sadly, it can be abused for easy exp points to unlock other stuff, but the system itself is solid.

HATED

• F**KING CHEATERS!!: Let’s get this out of the way first because it’s pretty much unavoidable. This game cheats like hell! The most obvious method is by the blatant rubber banding which is performed by the AI. We’re talking Mario Kart Wii levels of rubber banding here! It doesn’t matter if you’re 5 seconds ahead of the pack, just one mistake, a corner taken too wide for example, will have your lead not only disappear but more than likely your position will be knocked down to outside the top 3! You don’t need a catastrophic error like a crash or spin for it to happen either! They will always be right on your ass! Furthermore, I have seen some races where opponents will simply drive past you and gain a massive lead WITHOUT BOOST! At several points, the car in front of me managed to maintain the same distance from me while I’m boosting and they’re not. That just isn’t right!!
• Fragging: Fragging is basically the equivalent to a takedown in other arcade racers but with the difference being that you can only really do it if you are either boosting or drifting.  It hits almost ridiculous levels as you are practically invincible under normal circumstances until someone boosts or drifts, at which point, you become as strong as wet tissue paper. Even if you are fragged, should your flaming wreck of a car hit another car before you restart, the other car would come out pretty much unscathed. You need to get into several head-on collisions with traffic before your car hits “damage critical” levels but you still need one mighty shove before you get fragged. On the other end of the scale, if you’re boosting, you just need to touch the bumper of another car to get a frag. If you’re driving side by side and jostling for an advantage, boost is it because as soon as one of them boosts, the other is fragged! There’s simply no consistency beyond you frag if you’re boosting/drifting and you get fragged if you’re not!
• A general lack of understanding: The developers said that they didn’t add any tutorials or help because they didn’t want to hold the players hand when they played. The problem is that not explaining things made it arguably worse! Many shortcuts (which are marked but can only be accessed if you are boosting. If you just drive in at top speed or your boost cuts off just before you hit, you will crash!) don’t seem to provide much of an advantage in terms of distance from other racers, if any BUT they do often provide significant boost power. This isn’t explained so while you can get a free boost bar from taking shortcuts, it’s often not economical to hold your boost you’ve accumulated until you reach one. Also, when you frag an opponent, at times, you can earn a lot of boost power while at other times, you get next to none. At this point 2/3rds of the way through the game, I still don’t know what controls how much boost you get!! All these question marks hurt the game because it makes it very difficult to think up strategies and plan ahead! And there’s always the guy right behind you just waiting to frag you!

Ultimately, I think the game is above average but has so many flaws, it might just stand out for the wrong reasons. From the looks of things, many of the low score reviews are “playing the game wrong” by adhering too strongly to traditional control styles while the high scoring reviews are giving the game too much credit. My experience with the game paints it as an incredibly frustrating and confusing racing game with some high points appearing from time to time. It says a lot when I say that the time I have the most fun on the game is when I don’t have to worry about frags, shortcuts or any of the stuff which was pushed so heavily in the advertising of the game! It’s best when it’s just being a racer! The other side events feel out of place (especially time trial) and domination will frustrate many a gamer as this is where the cheating is most obvious and prevalent. There’s a solid base to be found in unbounded but it needs a lot of refinement before it can stand up to the big boys. The burnout games are still the kings of the destruction derbies while racers still have the standard Ridge Racer titles and Reiko Nagase to hold up the series.

In fact, there were only 2 sticking points when making this kit. The first one were the gaps which showed up around the waist when I put the pieces together. Filling them up was a little annoying but not exactly a unique problem. I’ve done stuff like that many times before on other kits, and those were more annoying!  The second was, surprisingly, the eye decals. Yeah, I got lazy and decided to use the decals provided but some “smart” guy at volks thought it was a good idea to make the ink water soluble, so if you left the decal in water for too long, then the ink would start running off!! The problem is that the decal needs water before it can be removed from the paper!

Otherwise, it was an easy paintjob. A lot of masking tape was required but everything went really smoothly. It took a few attempts to get the shimmering blue effect to a level which I thought worked well but that was about it. The hair might be a little better off if it was a little lighter but blonde is a very difficult colour to get 100% right as it’s not simply yellow. I think the hair could be a little better but the current shade works very well.

The seams on the side are still visible but don’t really stand out so I didn’t do much else to them. This is one of those points where trying too hard to remove them entirely might actually cause more problems than they fix.

One thing which did bemuse me a little what that Volks provided 2 sets of hairpieces for the kit. One was the original bun style which saber is best known for and the other was her hair untied. Each one had a different front hairpiece to go with whichever style you choose but they only gave one ahoge!! Luckily, the pieces are somewhat interchangeable but I can’t help but think that Volks simply only wanted you to stick with 1 hairstyle…

Personally, I think I like the hair down look more but both work pretty well.

And here’s what the second hairpiece looks like. Without the ahoge though. Hope she doesn’t go all alter on us…

This is how I have her currently set up…

And here’s the whole hair down look.

Looking at the pics now, I’m not sure if the decals were as good as I initially thought. They work well enough, but unlike Mistral, I don’t think that they are that much better than what I could have painted, especially with the issues with the running ink and all that.

My only real complaint about the kit would be that the pose itself isn’t that interesting. It fits the scene where it comes from very well but to a casual observer, it’s not very striking. Having said that, this is meant to be a kit for beginners so more complex poses would have increased the difficulty.

It’s just a shame that even with Volks making the process of building a kit so easy with these Try-GK figures, I don’t think many people took a chance to try. Buyers are far more interested in just getting pre-made PVC figures purely for the convenience of being able to pose them straight out of the box. They seem to be adverse to the mere idea of constructing something! I don’t think that the colour resin kits available have gotten too much traction either and those only require glue to look good!

But I’ll stop there before it goes into full blown rant mode, but it is a little depressing that most people around the world would rather the convenience of not having to do anything and getting the same thing as thousands of others who bought the exact same thing. I started this hobby precisely because that was what i DIDN’T want to do, but it seems that no matter how low the entry point is, people just won’t get on board because no effort is preferred over a little effort.

That’s a little sad… But that won’t make me stop. I already have an idea on what my next kit will be as well!! No procrastinating this time!

Anyway, most of the gaps have been covered now and I’ve got a nice shade of blue which I’m happy with so here’s where I’m up to right now!

I put the head on this time as I don’t want people to think that she’s been, what was it? “Mami’d?” Still need to mix up the colour for the hair though, since blonde isn’t actually yellow but I think I’ll cheat and use the decals provided for the eyes.

The seams on the side of the skirt are still visible though. They don’t look bad per se, but they do jar a little. Not sure if I’m going to give another crack at it or leave it as I can’t just redo and repaint just that part. Probably the whole thing needs to be redone, so I might lose the shade which I managed to get…

Aside from that, there’s only minor detailing left. I’ll add magnets to the head so I can swap out the hairpieces but that will be it and I’ve pretty much decided on my next kit as well so things are looking smooth. Well, except for the skirt seam… Maybe I should do something about it. But first, I want to get some of my video game backlog out of the way!!