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natsubeatsrock · 3 years

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10 Things I Enjoyed in 2020 that Aren’t Fairy Tail

Well... it’s almost over? With all the crazy stuff that’s happened this year, it’s hard to remember that there were some good things to come from this year. So instead of 7, here’s 10 things I enjoyed throughout this year.

#10. Sonic the Hedgehog

Not unlike many people, this would be the last film that came out this year I would see in theaters before everything shut down earlier this year. While I have gone out to watch movies throughout this year since, this happens to be the only movie I’ve been looking forward to that came out this year. Since the release of Detective Pikachu last year, the fraught history of video game movies has started to look a lot better. For all intents and purposes, I think this film is better than that one, and I’m a much bigger fan of Pokemon than Sonic. If certain spoilers are a sign of anything, a future sequel will be interesting to see and greatly anticipated.

#9. Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia

One of the blessings-in-disguise of being locked down with extra money is the ability to get and enjoy things you haven’t gotten the opportunity to before. In my case, I was able to play through some of the Pokemon games I’ve been waiting to play through. My favorite of the bunch has been the second installment of the Pokemon Ranger series. The Ranger games have been greatly underrated and overlooked by fans. I was reintroduced to the original last Christmas and believe it to be a solid game, but this easily blows it out of the water. While this year also marked the sad end of the 3DS cycle, I’m glad that this game came my way.

#8. 42

With the unfortunate passing of its lead actor, Chadwick Boseman, and the racial tensions which came to a head after the death of George Floyd, it makes sense theaters would reopen with this movie. Jackie Robinson’s story is one that’s interested me as the talks of integration and racism have gone on this year. He became the first African American MLB player because of both his talent on the field and his character off it. He wasn’t just skilled in stealing bases. He didn’t allow the anger he rightly felt towards racism control him.

#7. Bakuman

The famed writer and artist duo behind Death Note teamed up to deliver another smash hit manga for Weekly Shonen Jump. This time, about... a writer and artist duo who team up to make a name for themselves by delivering a smash hit manga to Weekly Shonen Jump. As I read Bakuman, I was struck with the genius of its construction. It’s one thing to read the information about Shueisha and WSJ this series shares in a book. It’s another for that information to be shared within the confines that the series itself describes. Special shout-outs go to Ayakashi Triangle and Phantom Seer which started in WSJ this year.

#6. Power Girl: Power Trip

Oh? Were you perhaps expecting to see some other female character owned by Detective Comics Comics who graced the silver screen take this spot? Well, maybe next year, depending on how things go. I love my comic book heroes with healthy doses of snark and existential crisis. While I might have gone in expecting the former, I wasn’t expecting the latter as much. If you know about Power Girl, you may know about her famous “boob window“, which is in lieu of a real symbol. It turns out that she was originally thought to be Superman’s cousin, but has recently been proven to be otherwise. I’m not so against DC that I’m unwilling to admit when they make books that I like.

#5. Carole and Tuesday

Carole and Tuesday holds a special spot as becoming the latest 10/10 anime I’ve seen. This is easily one of the most diverse anime that I’ve ever seen. It’s not just a matter of showing people of different walks of life, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. It’s also showing artists different music styles from folk to jazz to rap to electronic to new age to operatic rap. And none of it feels forced or unnatural, though some of it might come off as offensive. If you’re on as big a planet as Mars, you’ll expect to see all kinds of people and hear all kinds of music as long as you’re willing to listen. Shinichiro Wantanabe is one of anime’s best directors and this might be his best work yet.

#4. Lupin III: The First

If you told me a few years ago that one of the best anime movies would be a fully CGI film, I would have looked at you like you were insane. Nevertheless, this movie exists. I was skeptical about the idea of a fully CGI movie for a character like this. But when I saw a clip from the movie, I could tell they knew what they were doing. This movie is by no means anywhere as good looking as Spiderverse, but it looks amazing in its own right. Content wise, this serves as a great heist film for anyone regardless of proximity to the series. Arsene Lupin III makes It makes a fine introduction to the world of one of anime’s most longstanding series, and a good launching point for his earlier antics. Props to Weathering to You for keeping this slot warm. (Ironic considering things...)

#3. John Byrne’s run on Sensational She-Hulk

So I wasn’t going to say this talking about Power Trip, but I need to say this here. American comics are at a weird spot. In attempts to reach a wider audience, they’re not doing a great job of keeping the fans they have. Or make actually new ones. The current run of Savage She-Hulk has been no exception to this. Though it wasn’t always like this and John Byrne’s runs on Sensational She-Hulk is proof positive. Byrne took Jennifer Walters with more fun than I’ve seen any author write any comic book with. This especially shows in one of the more notable abilities of She-Hulk, breaking the fourth wall. I was very worried when I heard Marvel Studios was going to do a series with Shulkie. But with this as inspiration, maybe there’s hope for this project after all. (Please be good!)

#2. Burn the Witch

Tite Kubo is back, baby! This spot doesn’t go to any of the sets of chapters to be published in Shonen Jump. Rather, his collaboration with Studio Colorido is my choice for anime of the year. Burn the Witch tells the story of a different Soul Society than Bleach fans may be familiar with. It’s almost cheating to compare this mid-length film to the other shows to come out this year, even if it was broken up into three episodes for streaming sites. However, film or otherwise, no other anime grabbed my attention as much as this did. This also marks the best anime from WSJ I’ve seen this year. Surely I’m not forgetting anything big to come out recently in saying this, especially from this year with everything that got delayed. Honorable mentions go to TONIKAWA: Under the Moon, Bofuri, BNA, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!, and Misfit of Demon King Academy for nearly taking my spot.

#1. Skullgirls

This year has been a tough year for a lot of people, companies, and fandoms. Though, I’d be hard pressed to think of a fandom that has had a worse year than this indie fighter. One of its founders was revealed to be terrible, one of its parent companies went under, and a prime opportunity for the spotlight in EVO Online being cancelled, it wouldn’t be a mistake to say things aren’t going well. Thankfully, the fans and dev team have done everything they can to keep this game alive before and that didn’t stop this year. It feels somewhat on-brand for this series to have survived the kinds of situations that would normally kill a game off. This game would have made the top spot by virtue of being the most fun game I played this year. I’m proud to put it at this spot knowing everything that’s surrounded it this year.

For extra honorable mentions, Pokemon’s seventh generation of games, especially the Ultra versions, were fun to finally experience and they have the best stories of the 3DS era of Pokemon. Cobra Kai was a fun series and almost definitely would be here if I were more emotionally attached to the Karate Kid series. I rewatched Neon Genesis Evangelion and it’s better than I remembered originally. Finally, I’d move heaven and earth to add Oregairu or Hilda on this list, considering new seasons came out this year, but I know better.

As usual, check my list for EZ, which also has 10 things, and be glad we’re almost done with this year. See you!

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zerochanges · 5 years

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50 Years of Dororo - Mushi Pro’s Dororo 1969 vs Studio Mappa’s Dororo 2019

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Mushi Pro’s Dororo anime adaptation, the last anime to be made solely in black and white. The 1969 original Dororo anime is a cult classic, with high accolades from the diehard community and still holds up incredibly well to this day. Yet that didn't stop Studio Mappa from creating their own adaptation of the manga, which has finally released just this week. So the real question is, how do the two of them compare--well let’s get into it.

But first, a little background. The original Dororo manga, created by prolific manga creator Osamu Tezuka, ran in Weekly Shonen Sunday for about one year, from August 1967 to July 1968, where it then entered a hiatus for a brief period, before finally shifting to the Monthly Adventure King magazine in 1969 where it was serialized for about 6 months (May to October ‘69) and finally “concluded”. I say concluded but the manga mostly just abruptly stops before the characters accomplish any of their own goals, and things are more or less just left open in case Tezuka ever wanted to come back to the series (he didn't). Despite this Dororo has remained to be an incredibly beloved property by Tezuka and seen its fair share of retellings and adaptations from video games to live action films, and of course to anime.

So now let’s talk anime. The original 1969 adaptation of Dororo was created by Mushi Pro, Tezuka’s own animation studio that he started half a decade back in 1963, and as said above was the last anime to be created solely in black and white. By this point in time color TVs were finally becoming widespread in Japan, and most anime have already started to be created in color. This was not an easy process, and was more time consuming for the production, which is why the decision was made by Mushi Pro to stick to the work pipeline they had and produce Dororo in black and white, a decision that really went on to define the entire series. Mushi Pro's Dororo has a very crisp look, with some great animation for its era, but beyond that also manages some incredibly terrifying and equally breathtaking moments because of its beautiful artwork mixed with the black and white aesthetic. There’s just something about black and white, the atmosphere it creates is otherworldly, ask any movie buff and they’ll tell you the effects it has on the horror genre is undeniable. I think these late black and white 1960 era anime hold up so incredibly well, and may in fact be even creepier nowadays (the 1968 GeGeGe no Kitaro comes to mind).

Dororo (1969) episode 4: The Scroll of Bandai Part 2

Time marches on however, and after 50 years it’s time for another studio to take a swing at Dororo. Mappa is a small animation studio established in 2011, founded by Masao Maruyama, producer and co-founder of Madhouse, who left Madhouse to pursue his own passions and took some staff with him. Maruyama would later leave Mappa in 2016 unfortunately, but the studio to this day has still been producing hits since. The staff behind their current Dororo adaptation is helmed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi as director, Satoshi Iwataki as character designer, Yasuko Kobayashi in charge of scripts, and Yoshihiro Ike composing the music. Background animation is handled by Studio Pablo. Dororo is produced by Twin Engine, a production company with its main focus being the creators of the medium. Founded by Kouji Yamamoto, Twin Engine wishes to let young artist focus on creating anime, ignoring popular trends instead pursuing only the art of the medium; often commissioning work from studios to keep them financially afloat. Dororo, like a large majority of Twin Engine produced series, streams worldwide on Amazon Prime.

My final aside before diving into some thoughts on how both adaptations compare is that when it comes to adapting Tezuka’s iconic designs to the form of animation there are often changes made. The more Disney-esque look of his drawings can be hard to pull off for action animation, and well, giant noses, and bushy mustaches are well and good, but when you’re trying to sell hideous monsters chomping people into bits, maybe they are not that fitting for this story. That’s why both the 1969 Mushi Pro and 2019 Mappa series have their own takes on the design of the characters. Mushi Pro sorta goes for making protagonist Hyakkimaru more buff, and adult looking, whereas Mappa makes their Hyakkimaru slim and more ikemen. I think both approaches work fine for the story at hand, and are interesting time capsules of themselves for their own eras.

So let’s compare the first episode of both series!

Both episodes start in a similar fashion, with Feudal Lord Daigo Kagemitsu making a deal to 48 Demons and sacrificing his then unborn son in the process. However even this early on we can see differences between the two adaptations.

In the 1969 Mushi Pro version Daigo willingly offers up his own son to the demons, and does so for power, asking them to grant him all of Japan under his rule, whereas in the 2019 Mappa version Daigo only offers the demons anything they want in return, never directly giving them his own son, and asks for the demons to give him the power and prestige he will need to rule over Japan.

At first I felt that Mappa may have made Daigo a bit more sympathetic, him seemingly asking for his own province to be granted protection from disease, famine, and war is certainly something we haven’t seen out of the character, but were perks he does enjoy later in the story regardless. As I ruminated on it however, I realized it’s more of an attempt to round out his character and add some extra depth to him. Sure those may have been great things for a Feudal Lord to ask for, but Daigo really only cares about one thing, and that’s ruling Japan; this has yet to change. Daigo still has no qualms about his own son Hyakkimaru being born a hideous freak and still throws away the newborn baby to die in some river while yelling at his wife to make another one to replace it.

One Buddhist monk starves to death while bemoaning the state of Japan while another is slain and bemoans the current state of affairs in Japan

Then there’s Daigo killing a Buddhist monk. This scene does not exist in the 1969 Mushi Pro version (but Daigo does murder the monk albeit under different circumstances in the manga) and I have quite a bit to say about that. Daigo’s conversation with this monk, again, shows him off to be a bit more well rounded. He’s still selling his soul to the devil, but we can see his own level of commitment to his ambition when talking to the monk. The monk also plays another role that mirrors Mushi Pro’s first episode. In Mushi Pro’s debut episode Dororo comes across a starving Buddhist monk that can do nothing but beg for food and pray, and eventually succumbs to his starvation and dies. Both monks remark about the horrors of the current sengoku era being like Hell on Earth, and are meant to communicate to the audience that this particular time in Japanese history is perhaps one of the cruelest.

1969 or 2019, Daigo is still a dirt-bag and makes his wife suffer.

Let’s talk about Hyakkimaru’s birth as I think it’s a pretty interesting contrast between these two adaptations. In the 1969 Mushi Pro version Daigo already knows his son should be born a monster so upon seeing the hideous freak that is his baby boy, he proudly declares “My end of the bargain is fulfilled!” The demons have accepted Daigo’s offer and he can’t be happier. In the 2019 Mappa version Daigo is not aware of what the demons will take until a bolt of lighting strikes the room his wife is giving birth in. Upon seeing the baby up close (something not seen in the 1969 version until the second episode) Daigo realizes what has happened and orders the baby killed. We then get a conversation about a Buddhist statue that happened to break in the same room. The wet nurse believes it sacrificed itself in order to save the baby, giving a sorta strange implication that perhaps the deal wasn't to take 48 body parts from Hyakkimaru but to take everything from him, including his life. In fact we never really even establish if there are 48 demons, or 48 body parts missing, so the number may vary, and the kind of curse could be different. If that is true, it is certainly a unique approach to the series.

The image of baby Hyakkimaru from Mushi Pro's 1969 Dororo adaptation is taken from the second episode as it was not shown in the first episode.

Hyakkimaru’s birth between the two versions shows how both mirror each other--we have less subtle writing but more subtle animation in the 1969 Mushi Pro adaptation, and more subtle writing but super over-the-top animation in the 2019 Mappa adaptation. I find this maybe the best way to compare these two anime entirely so far. There is no huge lightning bolt smiting the room Daigo’s wife is giving birth in with the Mushi Pro version, instead you hear the mother scream in terror upon Hyakkimaru's birth as she breaks down and cries. Daigo and his wife's expressions of horror at the baby is the only clear indication of Hyakkimaru's hideousness instead of just showing the baby like Mappa did. But the Mappa version is trying to give some more depth to its characters, and maybe even to its own world with added bits such as the Buddhist statue maybe protecting Hyakkimaru. Both adaptations seems to have reverse on what they want to be subtle about and what they want to be over-the-top about.

In the 1969 Mushi Pro version Daigo and his wife send Hyakkimaru down the river in a basket themselves, where as in the 2019 Mappa version Daigo orders the wet nurse to drown Hyakkimaru in the river, but she pities the baby and places him in an abandoned boat then pushes it down the stream. And then a demon shows up and murders her out of nowhere and is slain by the blind monk Zato (a character that didn't appear until Hyakkimaru narrates his past to Dororo a little later in the story). Yeah, that was a really weird addition to the story Mappa made. It’s certainly more over-the-top and gets a bit more action into an episode that amounts to basically all set-up, so there is that, I guess. Still really weird to see Zato show up like this.

Both Zato and Jukai don't make their introduction until Hyakkimaru explains his past to Dororo in the second episode of the 1969 Mushi Pro Dororo.

Speaking of adding in characters earlier than before, Mappa included scenes that would interrupt the episode every now and again that focus on a doctor who gives prosthetics to dead maimed warriors so they can rest in peace. These scenes did not exist in the 1969 Mushi Pro version, which didn't show Jukai until episode 2 where it tells the story of how he saved a baby in the river he found, Hyakkimaru, and gave it prosthetics.

The introduction to Dororo is pretty similar in both versions, but more drawn out in the 1969 Mushi Pro adaptation. As discussed above with Daigo and the Buddhist monk, there was a scene where a starving monk begs Dororo for food before succumbing to his own starvation and dying, this was not present in the 2019 Mappa adaptation. Dororo gets more time to just do some general hijinks and mess around in town in Mushi Pro's version as well, before finally stealing food from some lowlifes and getting the crap kicked out of him by the riverbank.

In the Mappa version instead of stealing food from lowlifes Dororo steals their cargo and tries to pawn it but is caught then beaten at the riverbank. I imagine Mappa was just trying to streamline Dororo's introduction here for time constraints so they did their best to get across that he’s a thief while also making sure he ends up at the riverbank right away. Either way both adaptations lead to this slime looking monster appearing out of a pile of garbage in the river and eating the lowlife. Mappa’s more over the top animation has the monster swinging around its arms wildly until eventually grabbing said lowlife and making a snack out of him, where Mushi Pro has it slowly slither on top of the lowlife and then melts him. Ouch, that’s kinda way more messed up.

The lowlife gets melted by the monster in the manga too.

From this point on both adaptations are pretty much entirely the same, with just differences in animation quality being really all there is to comment on. The fight scene between Hyakkimaru and the slime in Mappa’s version is fantastic, with Hyakkimaru performing incredible acrobatics, jumping all around the bridge and slicing the whole thing up until it collapses on top of the slime killing it, where Mushi Pro … well they did their best, okay.

The real big difference is that Dororo seems a lot more intelligent when approaching Hyakkimaru in the 2019 Mappa version. Dororo was very quick to notice that Hyakkimaru is blind, and that his body is made up of mostly prosthetics. The 1969 Mushi Pro Dororo ends up getting terrified in the very next episode upon the realization that Hyakkimaru’s eyes are fake (he admittedly popped his glass eyes out of his head though to scare Dororo away).

The 2019 Mappa version has it that the riverbank monster was apparently one of the 48 demons Hyakkimaru needed to slay in order to regain his body parts, this one giving him back his skin. Hyakkimaru was actually born with his skin in the 1969 Mushi Pro version (as well as in the manga), and the monster was not the first demon he needed to kill but just a run-of-the-mil yokai that awarded him no regenerated body parts. Hyakkimaru actually worded it as "the dead", which have no true shape of their own and just latch onto anything, in this case the garbage in the river--thus making the slime monster we saw. Again I think Mappa was trying to kill two birds with one stone and get the audience acquainted with the series quicker since the general plot is essentially Hyakkimaru slays monster, Hyakkimaru grows back lost body part. This was a good way to streamline things, and it was with a body part that he wasn't missing before so it takes away nothing from later parts of the story.

And this is the biggest difference right here at the end of the episode, Hyakkimaru has yet to talk. He may not be able to speak at all until he’s slain enough demons to get this ability back. The Mappa version has so far seemed to point to Hyakkimaru being mute, deaf and blind, and completely cut off from the world. The Mushi Pro version had Hyakkimaru lack his eyeballs, his mouth, and his ears, but he could still speak and hear (just like in the manga). I always assumed it was just his outer ear missing but he still had all his inner ear like his eardrums, and well, you can talk without lips, so there was that too. The Mappa version seems to fully commit to Hyakkimaru being born without all his senses, and if it’s true it will be a super interesting take on the character to be sure. It will also be hard to pull off considering how much he speaks in the original story; he's a very vocal character, so if it is true, until he regains his ability to speak Dororo has to be the one to carry the duo in conversations entirely now which will lead to major shake-ups in the plot.

What do you think of the newest anime adaptation of Dororo. Are you excited to see the classic come back for modern times? Do you wish it was more like the manga or are you enjoying all these attempts to create something more modern with the source material? Do you think Hyakkimaru will speak in the next episode or do you think he's actually going to start the show as a mute? Are you looking forward to keeping up with this new adaptation of Dororo?

PS - Shout out to Mappa for putting a dog into their first episode that resembles Nota, the mascot character invented for the 1969 Mushi Pro series in a vain attempt to prevent the children that were watching it from being emotionally scarred (it probably didn't).

#Dororo #Hyakkimaru to Dororo #Hyakkimaru and Dororo #Hyakkimaru #Mushi Productions #Mushi Pro #Mappa #Studio Mappa #anime

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choronekoo-blog · 5 years

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Beloved anime Cowboy Bebop is obtaining a live action remake

Cowboy Bebop could be a Kyouran Kazoku Nikki monumental anime that initial debuted in 1998. Shinichiro Watanabe’s series, that became a world-spanning cult classic, follows the story of bounty hunter gang Spike pig iron, Jet Black, Radical impotency and Faye Valentine as they jet round the galaxy searching down ill-famed criminals. it's a banging sound recording, and therefore the coolest cyberpunk aesthetic. Now, the enduring film is about to induce a live-action remake.

Netflix declared the planned adaptation yesterday (November 28), with original director Watanabe on board to consult. consistent with selection, it'll embody ten episodes. Having Watanabe concerned makes things feel a small amount additional positive, in a very world wherever live-action remakes have meant awfully unfaithful or rehashed works and tonedeaf whitewashing fiascos.

Rumours of a live-action revive have swirled for years – Keanu Reeves was antecedently connected to a remake and was reportedly meant to star as Spike pig iron within the later 00s. in a very 2013 Reddit AMA, Reeves said: “Cowboy Bebop doesn't appear as if it's progressing to happen with ME in it, adding that the script was “great and amazing”, however a replacement version would “cost sort of a [*fr1] a billion bucks to make”.

Netflix has been and is functioning on many live-action diversifications of giant anime movies and series. Last year, the streaming platform born horror series Death Note with Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe and Lakeith Stanfield. A version of Avatar is additionally in production. Most live-action anime remakes haven’t nevertheless tried highly regarded with fans tho' – the Ghost within the Shell film was criticised for whitewashing its main character, and Bleach and Fullmetal intellectual received wide negative reviews.

Earlier this month, Netflix declared it absolutely was partnering with some Japanese studios to provide seventeen new Asian original productions as well as 5 new anime series. One is Altered Carbon, exploring different components of the first book’s universe not enclosed within the live-action show, custom-made by Dai Sato World Health Organization worked on Cowboy Bebop. different Netflix productions embody Cagaster of Associate in Nursing Insect Cage (based on a manga regarding individuals turning into insects) and Trese (based on a Philippine graphic novel a couple of lady facing off with criminal supernatural creatures). several of those ar expected to debut in 2019.

Holiday Gift Guide – Best New and Classic Anime

Tis the season for brand new anime and finding that excellent gift for an admirer or loved one. every year we tend to raise our workers what their favorite anime was from the year and what their favorite classic anime was. Christmas is true round the corner. therefore if you have got a loved one or friend World Health Organization loves anime, explore our list of recommendations each new and classic.

Whether they relish slice of life, sci-fi or fantasy, anime offers a good vary of choices. Our list of recommendations feature our favorites from 2018 and classics that ne'er get previous.

Three If By house workers Recommendations

My Hero academe – Season two

My Hero academe – Our young heroes begin their initial internships with real pros! placed on blast by some serious coaching, Deku can see however so much he will push his new skills once a friend gets at bay by Hero Killer: Stain. The fight leaves a long-lasting impression before category 1-A goes back to the grind for final exams. Setting aside rivalries, the scholars face their toughest opponents yet—their lecturers.

We cannot advocate My Hero academe enough. The strong world building and character building makes this series heaps of fun to observe. You can’t facilitate however root for Deku and Bakugo to stay squaring off. Season two builds on season one therefore well, you need to check it out.

Midarezaki Ouka is employed to having strange things happen to him -after all, he's the pinnacle of the good Japanese Empire Paranormal Phenomena Bureau of Measures. however once he catches alittle cat lady within the searching district stealing apples, his whole life rearranges to suit a brand new operation...

OPERATION COZY FAMILY.

Thousands of years past, Enka the God of Destruction, was killed. However, with a dying breath it claimed that its kid would seem and destroy humanity. currently in artistic movement Japan, all of the potential kids of Enka are found and placed into a haphazard family.

Teika the lion, Gekka the jellyfish, Yuuka the office, Ginka the cross-dressing mafia son, and Hyouka the bioweapon--along with their oldsters Ouka and Kyouka (the ruler of a demon underneathworld)--all live under one roof during a family craze.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.1

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.2

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.3

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.4

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.5

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.6

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.7

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.8

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.9

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.10

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.11

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki EP.12

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enterprisehunter56 · 3 years

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Boruto Season 2 English Dub

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (also known as Boruto: Naruto Nekusuto Jenerēshonzu in Japanese) is an action anime television series based on a manga series of the same name. Written by Ukyō Kodachi and illustrated by Mikio Ikemoto, the manga series initially began serialization in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on May 9, 2016 and later transferred to the V Jump magazine in 2019.

Boruto English Dubbed Season 2

Naruto Season 2 English Dubbed

The Promised Neverland Season 2 English Dub comes to Toonami starting April 10th! The much-awaited adventure-thriller anime The Promised Neverland Season 2 with English subs is streaming every Thursday on Funimation and Hulu. The first episode premiered on January 8, 2021. It got renewed for 11 episodes of 25 minutes duration each. Yes boruto is available as English dubbed. There are 52 episodes release till today.

A year after the initial publication of the manga series, famed Japanese animation studio Studio Pierrot announced plans to adapt it into an anime television series and Season 1 of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations premiered on April 5, 2017. It was hailed by fans of the Naruto franchise as well as new viewers alike, and although Season 1 has not seen its conclusion yet, fans are already asking whether the show will see a second season being made. Here’s everything we know about the prospects of Season 2 thus far.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Season 2 Release Date: When will it premiere?

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations season 1 premiered on April 5, 2017, and is proving to be a behemoth of a show. Till date, the show has seen a whopping 113 episodes being aired, each of 23 minutes, and it remains unclear when the show will come to an end.

Thus, as it stands, the question of a second season is rather redundant. Studio Pierrot has not only revealed how long Season 1 will last, but it has also remained silent about the prospects of a second season. Considering the fact that the show has already seen 113 episodes being aired, there’s a distinct possibility that it will go all the way and finish off the entire story arc of the manga series when it comes to an end. The chances of this happening are pretty strong as Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is the successor to one of the most famous anime shows of all time – Naruto – and there’s no dearth of viewers in Japan and abroad.

However, considering the unpredictable nature of the anime industry, nothing can be said for certain, and we will have to wait for Studio Pierrot to make an official announcement on the future of the show before we can be sure about where the show is headed. We’re keeping our ears open for news on Boruto: Naruto Next Generations season 2 release date and we’ll update this section as soon as we hear something reliable.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations English Dub:

Being the successor to one of the most famous anime television series of all time, it was all but confirmed that Boruto: Naruto Next Generations would get an English dub. Indeed, it turned out to be true, and the show has a great English dub done by talented voice actors for international audiences. If you want to watch the show in English, you can find dubbed episodes on Crunchyroll.

Boruto English Dubbed Season 2

Read more in anime preview: Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Plot:

The events in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations take place years after the Fourth Shinobi World War. In the years of peace following the war, the village of Konohagakure prospered and saw unprecedented levels of technological advancement. Under the watchful eye of Naruto and his veteran comrades, the village transformed over the years and eventually grew to resemble a modern metropolis and a new generation of shinobi stepped forward to carry on the ways of the ninja.

In this backdrop, the show follows the adventures of Boruto Uzumaki, Naruto’s son. Owing to the legendary status of his father, Boruto is often the centre of attention in Konohagakure and like his father, also shares traits of arrogance and stubbornness. However, Boruto is considered to be a prodigy and can back up his boisterous personality with his abilities. As Boruto gains increasing control over his abilities and learns to unleash his potential, Boruto’s arrogance increases. Overconfident about his abilities, Boruto thus tries his best to step out of Naruto’s shadow, and this sense of competition he feels with his father results in their relationship becoming strained.

However, Boruto’s peaceful and carefree life soon comes to an end when a sinister force rears its head in Konohagakure and threatens to put an end to everything he loves and cares for.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Characters:

While Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has dozens of characters, there are only four main characters in the show. Below, we’ve provided you with brief backgrounds on each of the main characters.

Naruto Season 2 English Dubbed

(WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD)

Boruto Uzumaki: The titular protagonist of the show, Boruto is the son of the legendary Naruto and his wife, Hinata. Like his father, Boruto is a prodigy and an exceptionally skilled shinobi and shares similar personality traits. He is brash, boisterous, and does not seem to heed any formality or tradition. As Boruto gains mastery over his powers, he tries to compete with Naruto and become the best, and this competition results in fractures appearing in their relationship.

Sarada Uchiha: The daughter of Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, Sarada is another important character in the show. As far as her personality is concerned, she seems to have inherited the personality traits of both her parents. On one hand, like her mother, Sarada not only looks down on troublemakers and berates them, she also uses her mother’s catchphrase “Shannarou!”. On the other hand, Sarada also shares similar personality traits with her father, and refuses to acknowledge certain people. However, if the situation calls for it, Sarada is not above commending the same people she berates.

Konohamaru Sarutobi: The grandson of the Third Hokage, Konohamaru is named after the village he was raised in. Initially, Konohamaru struggles to gain recognition as the grandson of the Third Hokage, and after he fails to do so, he starts attacking his grandfather to prove his merit. Later, however, after meeting Naruto, Konohamaru realizes that he will have to train exceptionally hard if he wishes to become a Hokage someday.

Mitsuki: Bittorrent games download. The final main character in the show, Mitsuki is the son of Orochimaru. He is a shinobi of Konohagakure and is the teammate of Boruto and Sarada.

Read more in anime preview: One Punch Man

Author/artist Masashi Kishimoto was born in 1974 in rural Okayama Prefecture, Japan. Like many kids, he was first inspired to become a manga artist in elementary school when he read Dragon Ball. After spending time in art college, he won the Hop Step Award for new manga artists with his story Karakuri. After considering various genres for his next project, Kishimoto decided on a story steeped in traditional Japanese culture. His first version of Naruto, drawn in 1997, was a one-shot story about fox spirits; his final version, which debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, quickly became the most popular ninja manga in the world. The series would also spawn multiple anime series, movies, novels, video games and more. Having concluded the series in late 2014, Masashi Kishimoto kept himself busy penning continuing adventures in the Naruto world, including the manga Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring and the story for Boruto: Naruto the Movie, both of which focus on the title character’s son, Boruto.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Netflix’s Lupin: Is Arsène Lupin Real?

https://ift.tt/39LrF1p

This piece contains spoilers for Netflix’s Lupin.

Lupin, Netflix’s witty French mystery drama about a modern-day gentleman thief, constructs all of its cleverly layered mythology around a figure known as Arsène Lupin: smart, suave, a master of disguise, always one step ahead. Considering how much attention Assane Diop (Omar Sy) invests into adopting Lupin’s identity, not to mention how Officer Guedira (Soufiane Guerrab) devotes his equally fannish knowledge to following Diop’s tracks, it makes perfect sense to wonder, is Arsène Lupin real?

And here is where the answer is tricky, in a fun way: Arsène Lupin is not a real person, but he is a real fictional character outside of Lupin the series. Created in 1905 by French author Maurice Leblanc as a response to the popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Great Detective Sherlock Holmes (created in 1887), the charismatic burglar is a reversal of Holmes in almost every way, though they share considerable smarts and an affinity for disguises. Lupin’s gentleman thief is a stock character who often possesses so much wealth that he doesn’t need to steal for material means, but instead does it for the thrill—and who has enough connections and resources that he’s consistently able to get away with it. Lupin operates under a Robin Hood-esque moral code of stealing from the wealthy and/or those who gained their wealth by taking advantage of the less fortunate.

In his trademark top hat and monocle, Lupin’s first appearance was in serialized stories in the French magazine Je sais tout, though he quickly grew so popular that Leblanc penned 17 Lupin novels or collections, including several dozen stories or novellas. Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar was the first collection, released in 1907, and features prominently in the Netflix series as the book that Babakar Diop (Fargass Assandé) gifts to young Assane before he is framed for stealing The Queen’s Necklace from the Pellegrinis; Diop later gives a new copy of the same book to his 14-year-old son Raoul (Etan Simon).

“Lupin is so French that you cannot grow up in France and not know who is Arsène Lupin,” star Omar Sy told Variety ahead of the series premiere, comparing the gentleman thief to the English spy James Bond. Though series creator George Kay (Killing Eve) likely grew up reading and watching Bond instead of Lupin, he was drawn to what he described as the themes of “mischievous, adventurous crooks and criminals intersecting establishment” yet equally interested in subverting the established canon.

In case you’re wondering if ever Lupin met his predecessor, there is indeed an Arsène Lupin/Sherlock Holmes crossover—except that in the collection it’s called Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes, after legal objections from Doyle to the original 1906 story “Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late.” While the stories have the detective and the thief regularly matching wits, Lupin seems to come out on top each time, whether by escaping even after Holmes solved the case, or by sharing motivations sympathetic enough to keep the detective from completing an investigation. Holmes also figures into the 1909 novel The Hollow Needle, albeit in a more behind-the-scenes fashion that still impacts the heartbreaking ending.

In addition to their characters being cut from the same cloth, Leblanc seems to have shared Doyle’s frustration with one character defining his entire literary career. Though Leblanc attempted to create other characters like private eye Jim Barnett, even Barnett got absorbed into the Lupin mythos, to become another of the gentleman thief’s aliases.

Leblanc continued writing Lupin novels (and a couple of plays) into the late 1930s, with the official final novel The Billions of Arsène Lupin serialized in 1939 and published posthumously in 1941 following his death in the same year; and the lost novel The Last Love of Arsène Lupin posthumously published in 2012 after being discovered in 2011.

Lupin Part 2 Release: What is Netflix’s Plan?

By Kayti Burt

Lupin also appears in a handful of stories (some parodies) written by several American, Japanese, and French authors during Leblanc’s lifetime, and plenty after; as well as several film adaptations, including the 1932 film starring John Barrymore. The character has also been radically reimagined a number of times since his creation.

Of the many Arsène Lupins, a few versions from the last fifty years have been especially memorable: Monkey Punch’s Japanese manga (and later anime) Lupin III character Arsène Lupin III, the gentleman thief’s grandson, who also starred in Hayao Miyazaki’s The Castle of Cagliostro; and a manifestation in Atlus/P-Studio’s role-playing game Persona 5. But Lupin’s take is arguably the most self-referential, with Diop pulling heists from Lupin stories (“The Queen’s Necklace,” “Arsène Lupin in Prison”) and adopting a variety of anagram monikers (Luis Perenna, Paul Sernine).

However, the Maurice Leblanc Day that takes place in Lupin Chapter 5, in which fans flock to the coastal town of Étretat dressed in top hats and capes, seems to be a slight exaggeration. Leblanc’s holiday home at the commune was converted to the museum Le clos de Arsène Lupin, faithfully recreated in the style of the gentleman thief’s lodgings, complete with his accomplice Grognard present to lead Lupin enthusiasts through an immersive, eight-part adventure in the style of his Étretat-set novel The Hollow Needle. That said, it’s unclear if Leblanc’s December 11 birthday is a national holiday for Lupin fans, nor if the commune regularly swarms with top-hatted readers like in Part 1’s tense finale.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

With Part 1 ending on Guedira tracking down Diop and addressing him as “Arsène Lupin?”, it seems likely that the two fans from either side of the law will team up to rescue Diop’s son Raoul from Pellegrini’s people. In terms of how they’ll do it—well, there’s a wealth of material to choose from, but it will also require tapping into the more emotional aspects of the Lupin canon. As Sy told Variety, “[Assane’s] main tool is his head; he has difficulties working with his feelings—his heart and belly. So now his son is in danger [and] he will have to work with his instinct, and he never did.” Considering that The Hollow Needle ends in tragedy, hopefully this will be another case of Netflix’s Lupin diverging from canon.

Lupin is streaming now on Netflix.

The post Netflix’s Lupin: Is Arsène Lupin Real? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2XOxlCu

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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officialotakudome · 3 years

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New Post has been published on Otaku Dome | The Latest News In Anime, Manga, Gaming, And More

New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/square-enix-announces-love-live-game/

Square Enix Announces Love Live Game

Popular anime/manga series Love Live is getting a video game courtesy of Square Enix:

LOS ANGELES (Dec. 7, 2020) – SQUARE ENIX® announced that Love Live! School Idol Festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ Wai-Wai!Home Meeting!! is coming digitally to the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system in North America on March 24, 2021. The latest game based on Love Live! School Idol Festival All Stars, the popular rhythm action series with more than 45 million players worldwide, offers beautiful 3D graphics and marks the series’ debut on home consoles. Fans can download a Free Base Version of the game that includes new features exclusive to the PlayStation®4 system, including:

Free Base Content: Players will be able to unlock eight songs from μ’s and Aqours and three types of fan-favorite μ’s, Aqours, and Saint Snow costumes for free.

“View Live Show” Mode – A new mode allowing players to enjoy the performance without playing the rhythm action game. With this mode, players can freely operate the camera to focus on one specific idol member or capture the full stage, and take photos of their favorite scenes.

“Live Show Medley” Mode – A new mode in which players can relive up to 20 of their favorite performances in a set list that they create.

Three free costume packs— μ’s (School Unity), Aqours (School Unity), and Saint Snow (Believe again)

Fans can also create their own “Home Meeting !!” by collecting their favorite tracks out of 125 additional songs and selecting from 69 costumes; these can be obtained by collecting materials in-game, or purchasing downloadable content.** Players can also enjoy special color variations of some costumes, and pick their favorite outfits in order to customize the feeling of each musical performance.

* In some cases, players may need materials that can only be obtained from songs that are purchased as downloadable contents to create costumes. * Sub-unit costumes can be used only in sub-unit and solo performances. New character profiles and a list of playable songs, costumes and content packs are available at: https://lovelive-sifachm.square-enix-games.com The popular “Love Live!” cross-media entertainment franchise spans multiple platforms including games, anime and music. Following the success of the mobile game, Love Live! School Idol Festival All Stars, Love Live! School Idol Festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ Wai-Wai!Home Meeting!! is the newest installment based on the Japan-only arcade release of Love Live! School Idol Festival ~after school ACTIVITY~, specifically rebuilt for the PlayStation®4 system. In this game, players will be able to see popular school idols from the “Love Live!” franchise, as they perform a variety of catchy, cool and beautiful music performances. Love Live! School Idol Festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ Wai-Wai!Home Meeting!! is not yet rated and is releasing digitally only on the PlayStation®4 system on March 24, 2021. Related Links: Official website: https://lovelive-sifachm.square-enix-games.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lovelive_staff Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoveLiveStaff #lovelive About Love Live! Love Live! is a cross-media project based on the concept, “a story that makes our dreams come true.” A youth drama that follows nine high school girls who form an idol group in an attempt to save their school, it has been adapted for various media, including an animated TV series, music CDs and animated videos, magazines, comics, mobile phone applications, and card games. Love Live! has also featured in radio programs, live video streams via the Japanese video sharing website NicoNico, and in live concerts and events hosted by the voice cast. The first season of the “Love Live! School Idol Project” TV anime series was aired in Japan from January to March 2013, and the second season from April to June 2014. A feature length anime movie, “Love Live! The School Idol Movie,” opened at theaters in Japan on June 13, 2015, and has been a massive hit, with over 2 million customers and box office takings now exceeding 2.8 billion yen. Solo farewell shows by μ’s are planned at Tokyo Dome on March 31 and April 1, 2016. About the Love Live! Sunshine!! Project Love Live! Sunshine!!, with its central theme of “a story of realizing our dreams together,” is the latest part of the Love Live! Project. The story follows Aqours (pronounced “aqua”), the school idol group formed in Uchiura in Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, and is spread across different types of media such as CDs bundled with music videos on Blu-ray and DVD, events, magazines, smartphone apps, and more. The project started in February 2015 in DENGEKI G’s Magazine. Aqours’ first single, “Kimino Kokorowa Kagayaiterukai?”, was released later that same year in October. The first season of the TV anime series started airing in July 2016. The following year, Aqours performed their first solo live show “Aqours First LoveLive! ~Step! ZERO to ONE~” at Yokohama Arena on February 25 and 26, 2017. On August 5, 2017, Aqours began the “Love Live! Sunshine!! Aqours 2nd LoveLive! HAPPY PARTY TRAIN TOUR” with the final performances held at MetLife Dome (formerly Seibu Prince Dome) on September 29 and 30, 2017. In October of the same year, the second season of the TV anime series started airing. “Love Live! Sunshine!! Aqours 4th LoveLive! ~Sailing to the Sunshine~” was held at Tokyo Dome on November 17 and 18, 2018, and a brand new feature-length anime movie was released theatrically on January 4, 2019. Love Live! Official Worldwide Website: http://www.lovelive-anime.jp/worldwide/ About Love Live! School Idol Festival More than 45 million players worldwide enjoy this Japanese anime music rhythm game! Featuring over 100 playable songs, the difficulty can be adjusted to suit you. Play through Live Shows, read stories about the many interesting and unique characters, join in the events, and create and strengthen your own team of school idols! Super cute original costumes for the school idols in μ’s, Aqours, and more are added regularly. About Square Enix, Inc. Square Enix, Inc. develops, publishes, distributes and licenses SQUARE ENIX®, EIDOS® and TAITO® branded entertainment content throughout the Americas as part of the Square Enix group of companies. Square Enix, Inc. is affiliated with a global network of leading development studios such as Crystal Dynamics® and Eidos Montréal™. The Square Enix group of companies boasts a valuable portfolio of intellectual property including: FINAL FANTASY®, which has sold over 159 million units worldwide; DRAGON QUEST®, which has sold over 82 million units worldwide; TOMB RAIDER®, which has sold over 81 million units worldwide; and the legendary SPACE INVADERS®. Square Enix, Inc. is a U.S.-based, wholly owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

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seiten-taisei · 7 years

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whats a gecko ending?

Gecko ending; from TV Tropes

When a visual adaptation must have an ending, but is based on a work that has not finished yet, there are two possible solutions. One is to give the show some emotional closure without actually ending the main plot in any significant way.

However, some productions opt instead for a Gecko Ending — creating a conclusion/Grand Finale for the show out of whole cloth which resolves (or hastily buries) all the show's hanging threads and unresolved plot elements. In this manner, the original series simply sheds the adaptation, like how a gecko abandons its tail. Naturally, this requires that the viewers ignore many later revelations in the original work or it will make no sense, even if the series' plotline so far has been pretty similar.

To put things in perspective:

When Gensomaden Saiyuki came out there were about 5 volumes of the manga released. Sandstorm was completed and Minekura was working on the Kami Sama Arc.

Studio Pierrot wanted to continue so they created the arc about Homura and his crew. The entire second half of Gensomaden was created by the studio, not Minekura. Technically it may not be a Gecko ending as the Sandstorm arc with Seiten Taisei was completed and not given an alternate ending. Homura’s arc was all a TV original so gecko ending may not apply here.

However, Studio Pierrot also did Saiyuki Reload Gunlock. They had just finished the against the stream arc, the last arc Minekura had been working on, and adding in fillers here and there. She was asked for create characters for the next arc, those being Hazel and Gat.

Instead of ending the series at 13 episodes, they did their own version of what we know as Even a Worm. Because there was no manga conclusion, heck, Minekura had only released 2 chapters into what would be a 5 volume arc, they made up their own ending. One that not all fans enjoy considering many elements were not present. So it is considered a ‘Gecko ending’.

Sorry this got so long. Hope this answer helps though!

#Saiyuki #Saiyuki Information #Gecko Ending #Anonymous

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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All The Announcements (June 27)

June 29, 2020 9:45 PM EST

The Tencent Games Annual Conference 2020 revealed a bunch of new games, mainly coming to mobile, and mainly only announced in China for now.

The Tencent Games Annual Conference 2020 happened on June 27, with multiple new announcements from the biggest games company in the world. We’ve rounded up everything below.

Metal Slug Code: J (Release Date: 2020)

youtube

Metal Slug Code: J is coming to iOS and Android in 2020. It’s developed by TiMi Studios of the Tencent group. SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda made an appearance on the event’s stream to reveal the game. We heard about the game a few weeks ago and how a console game is coming too.

Noah’s Heart (Release Date: TBA)

youtube

Noah’s Heart (Obnoah Heart in Japanese), coming to mobile, is developed by Archisaur Games, runs on UE 4 and is aiming to be an MMO with a realistic world, with features such as a realistic climate. There’s a focus on exploration with vehicles to find ancient ruins and stuff. The game world is an actual spherical planet of 64 million square meters, but with Procedural Content Generation. It’ll also include crafting and meaningful choices that can make or kill NPCs. There’s both an English and a Japanese version of the reveal trailer.

Arad Senki Mobile (Release Date: August 12 in China)

Arad Senki or Dungeon Fighter Online is an online beat em up by Nexon. It’s getting a new free-to-play game on mobile. It seems the son of Ragna and Dante is also in the game.

Street Fighter: Showdown (Release Date: Open Beta soon in China)

A new smartphone game based on Capcom’s Street Fighter IP. It will also include online multiplayer elements and will be “easy to play like many cards-based games” according to Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono, who appeared on stream via a virtual avatar. He did not talk about a release outside China, so we’ll have to wait for more info to see if it’ll launch in other countries as well. Seeing this is Street Fighter, it probably will.

Dynasty Warriors Mobile Game (Release Date TBA)

A new Shin Sangoku Musou game, subtitled Victory in Chinese, was announced. Judging from the screenshots it looks like the usual for the series, except it’s on mobile. It was revealed with a message from Koei Tecmo’s Ryohiro Suzuk . According to our Japanese peers at 4Gamer, the game’ official site (which I cannot read since it’s in Chinese), has the names of the warriors listed in both Chinese and Japanese, so the game will probably be announced in Japan at some point.

Kurumi’s Diary (Release Date TBA)

Kurumi Nikki is a raising game on mobile featuring popular Japanese character Kurumi Nanase from Joynet. Kurumi is a character who binge eats, gets drunk and gets gloomy all the time, and is pretty popular on social media in Japan as she has her own goods and LINE stamps. The game’s time progresses in real time, and you can enjoy events and dates with Kurumi. New events and situations happen each day.

LINEマンガ「先輩はおとこのこ」https://t.co/ETJOnpAfui 「メンヘラ少女くるみちゃん。」https://t.co/51azzWwyVG

イラスト利用について→https://t.co/zeUSuykgvM ぽむの部屋→https://t.co/tIQx38Cfac グッズ→https://t.co/ivroTJIxI2 お仕事依頼→https://t.co/GrhHQgL9Nr pic.twitter.com/j9DTAqdkM8

— ぽむ＠ジョイネット (@pomujoynet1) December 16, 2019

Kurumi, seen on the third pic above, was designed by Pomu and has her own yonkoma manga. As a side note, Kurumi also has a twin sister called Konomi, who seemingly don’t appear in this game.

Kurumi Nanase and her sister Konomi Nanase are officially described as “menhera” characters. Menhera is a diminutive of “Mental Health” and is net slang from Japanese anonymous message boards to describe someone weird. It’s not an actual medical term but the word is more and more popular in Japan now. As such, some think it shouldn’t be used anymore as it can be taken in a discriminating way against people with actual mental health issues. Opinions on all that are divided according to Niconico.

At the moment, it’s not like it became a taboo word in Japan like “gaijin” either, and a lot of companies use it in official descriptions. Seiyuu on radio shows such as Tomokazu Sugita tend to use the word regularly too. Personally though, I’d recommend not using it if you ever talk with a Japanese person, in the one chance that they do have mental health problems.

Light and Night (Release Date TBA)

Light and Night (Hikari to Yoru no Koi in Japanese) is a new dating sim for women (and people who love men in general or who simply like these types of games), coming to mobile with multiple popular seiyuu in its cast. It’s a typical otome game, with a story featuring a female protagonist aiming to become a great designer, meeting various men entering her life. We have Osborn voiced by Kaito Ishikawa, Evan voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa, and Sariel voiced by Daisuke Kishio. The game was technically only announced in China, but it’ll definitely launch in Japan too seeing they revealed a Japanese cast.

Dragon Nest 2 (Release Date TBA)

Yet another MMO was announced at Tencent Games Annual Conference 2020. This is also coming to smartphones in China. It’s a typical MMO with PvE, PvP in an arena, and PK in fields. Dragon Nest 2 is a follow up to PC action RPG Dragon Nest R, launched in 2016 by Tencent.

Codename: Syn (Release Date TBA)

youtube

Codename: Syn technically isn’t a game but a tech demo for an unnamed upcoming open world FPS game on PC and consoles. Most probably PS5 / Xbox Series X. The tech demo was shown during the event and recorded by our Japanese peers from 4Gamer. The demo boats the game’s highly detailed graphics and character creation. Players will be able to pick between three factions and their own cybernetic animal companion. There are multiple vehicles as well.

There you have it. The Tencent Games Annual Conference 2020, rounded up.

Personally, I have a hard time enjoying Tencent related content for various reasons. I’m very uncomfortable with Tencent gaining more and more influence on Japanese IPs. And I’m sure anyone the slightest bit aware of the world’s affairs knows where I’m coming from. With that said, while I doubt I’ll play them myself, I’m looking forward to how some of these games will turn out. Most notably Noah’s Heart, Kurumi’s Diary, Light and Night, and what kind open world FPS the Codename: Syn tech demo will turn out into. Be sure to share your opinions in the comments.

Source: Tencent via 4Gamer

June 29, 2020 9:45 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/all-the-announcements-june-27/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=all-the-announcements-june-27

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top10animes-com · 5 years

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Top 10 Facts - Anime

Something people often confuse is the difference between the words "manga" and "anime". And I don't blame you if you do, because in Japan, "manga" can refer to both animation and comics. However, outside of Japan, "manga" strictly means "Japanese comics". "Anime", on the other hand, is simply the Japanese word for "animation". And before the word "anime" came about around the 1980s, people use the word "Japanimation" to specifically describe Japanese animation. But, to make it simple, "anime" means "animation", and "manga" means "comics". One thing that makes manga and anime so iconic and recognizable is often the large and exaggerated... ...eyes. You thought I would say boobs, didn't you? Well, we'll get there in a moment, but the large eyes on many manga and anime characters can actually be credited to one man. His name is Osamu Tezuka and is often considered the godfather of anime, as he was basically the Japanese version of Walt Disney. And, that is actually what inspired Tezuka. He was inspired by Disney cartoons where many of the characters, such as Mickey Mouse and Bambi featured large eyes. Another iconic design for manga and anime characters is the hair and usually extreme hair colors. However, the colors aren't just selected randomly. In many cases, they express significant elements of that character's personality. This is based on the color symbolism in Japan. For example, black can mean mystery or evil, red means joy, love, or aggression, gray can mean intellegence or boredom. Every color has its own set of meanings, however, not every anime and manga use it. In Japan, around 200 new anime appears on television every year, and more paper is used for printing manga, than for making toilet paper. Anime is such a huge phenomenon in Japan, that Japanese animation accounts for over 60% of the whole world's animation-based entertainment. The highest grossing anime film of all time is "Spirited Away" by Studio Ghibli, which has grossed over $270 million. At second place comes another Studio Ghibli film, "Howl's Moving Castle" at over $230 million. The longest running anime series, as well as the longest running animated series worldwide is a show called "Sazae-san". It began airing in Japan in 1969 and currently has over 2,255 individual episodes. It could also be said to have over 6,000 episodes depending on what counting system you use. The most amazing thing about this series, though, is that it's still in production after all these years. Compared to the Western world, where animation and comics are mostly seen as something only enjoyed by and targeted towards children, anime is quite the opposite. Even though there are a lot of stuff targeted just for children, there's just as much anime and manga targeted towards teens and adults, which is not afraid of showing death, gore, sex, and other controversial themes that's usually otherwise only seen in live action movies and series. Anime and manga even have specific categories to specify who the target audience is. "Anime" is a Japanese word, and since they don't use plurals in Japan, the plural of "anime" is "anime" and not "animes" Because anime and manga originates from Japan, there's a lot of genres, definitions, and words not often used elsewhere. Here are some examples. Moe (萌え) While it does not have a concrete definition, generally, it's used to describe that a female character, or even a whole show or comic, is striving to be very cute to invoke a feeling of sympathy and endearment within the viewer. Fan service (ファンサービス) Sexual elements simply included to please the audience that are usually unnecessary to plot development. ONA (ウェブアニメ) Anime intended to be distributed via the Internet for streaming or download. OVA (オリジナルビデオアニメーション) Anime intended to be distributed on VHS tapes or DVDs and not to be shown in cinema or on TV. Mecha (ロボットアニメ) Uh, giant fucking robots. It can be very hard to describe what an anime is because, technically, anime is just a simple abbreviation of the word animation. There are no predefined rules of what an anime should or should not include, yet most of us would identify this as an anime, while this would be a cartoon. However, 活動写真 (Motion Picture) is the oldest preserved anime in existence created around 1907 by an unknown animator. But, even though the word "anime" quite literally covers all of animation, the modern usage of the word usually describes one of two things. The first is that anime is defined by the characters' unique featues such as the pointy chin, large eyes, spiky hair, elongated thin bodies and limbs, and, of course, the obligatory huge breast syndrome. The second popular definition is that anime's own animation is created by [the] Japanese and/or was created in Japan.

https://youtu.be/Ja8JFEypESU

#top 10 #anime #facts

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operationrainfall · 5 years

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Title Non Non Biyori Seasons 1+2 Studio Silver Link Original Airing Season 1: October 7, 2013 – December 23, 2013 Season 2: July 6, 2015 – September 21, 2015 Genre Iyashikei, Slice of Life

As I continue my foray of getting back into anime, I find myself greatly appreciating the charm and simplicity of the Iyashikei genre. Iyashikei in Japanese means soothing or healing, and the purpose of this genre of anime is to relax its viewers. Depictions of natural beauty, emphasis on pleasant ambience through its audio and visuals, and an appeal for us viewers to take a step back and enjoy the simpler aspects of life are just some of the focal points that make for a noteworthy Iyashikei. And now I have the pleasure of reviewing and introducing to you seasons 1 and 2 of Non Non Biyori, perhaps the best example of Iyashikei anime and easily one of the best anime series I’ve experienced.

For those unfamiliar with Non Non Biyori, back in September of 2009, a mangaka named Atto debuted the manga version of this series in the Japanese magazine Monthly Comic Alive. The manga quickly attained popularity for its charming short stories featuring its appealingly memorable characters set to the backdrop of a rural, agriculturally lush village. Full volumes of the acclaimed manga were published to strong sales and soon after the release of the 5th volume in 2013, fans of Non Non Biyori were soon gearing up for the anime’s 1st season to be debuted later that year. The original 12-episode run was a major success and alongside the continued popularity of the manga, additional installments of the anime were produced. This includes two OVAs, or 13th episodes for seasons 1 and 2, bundled with the 7th and 10th manga volumes respectively, and, of course, the 12-episode 2nd season called Non Non Biyori Repeat. August 2018 saw the debut of the Non Non Biyori movie, which received such demand during its limited release in Japan that a country-wide release was soon implemented. Popularity of the manga and anime outside of Japan is also strong, resulting in the international licenses and releases of both. With the very recent announcement of a third season, fans worldwide wait with joyful fervor for the return of our beloved series.

Non Non Biyori follows the lives of four schoolgirls living in Asahigaoka, a fictional farming community in the Japanese countryside. Set to the theme that everyday life and the simplicity of country living can yet provide adventure, excitement, discovery, and joy, each story provides a charismatic glimpse into the wonderful lives of these girls. Each chapter of the manga depicts a unique story in the daily happenings of the cast and in similar fashion, each episode f the anime typically features two of these stories. One of my favorite aspects of this anime is that it vividly shows that everyday life can yield adventure and fun around every corner and reminds us viewers just how jam packed a single day can be. Something as simple as walking to the local candy store, spending a day at the beach, or trying to hide bad grades and run away from an irate parent all have their humor, lighthearted troubles, and abundant charms. And that’s the real magic of Non Non Biyori, conveying the hidden joys and simple pleasures in life through the everyday.

What makes this theme, this one of joy and discovery within the simple, truly shine is its characters. Non Non Biyori easily has some of the most lovable and memorable characters you’ll find anywhere. Though their personalities may be a bit form fitting, their experiences, circumstances, and their reactions through it all make them so incredibly appealing. Taking place in a remote, rural village, our main cast all share a single classroom, despite being in different grades, which lends itself to the interactions of such a diverse group. Hotaru Ichijo is a 5th grader who has just moved from Tokyo to Asahigaoka. The stark changes in her environment and lifestyle are a common focal point to the stories involving her. For her, it’s the discoveries and the coming to appreciate her new home and new friends that define her character. Despite only being a 5th grader, she is the most poised and mature character of the group, both in her personality and appearance. This plays well with the contrast of Komari Koshigaya, the oldest of the group, yet has a childlike temperament and short, childlike appearance. While Komari is Hotaru’s senpai, Hotaru often fawns over Komari the way one finds a kitten or puppy adorable. Komari’s short fuse also lends itself to her unintentionally cute reactions. Komari’s younger sister, Natsumi, is a bit of a tomboy with her abundant energy and, many times, her aversion to anything schoolwork related, often getting herself and those around her in heartwarming shenanigans. And finally, there is Renge Miyauchi. I could write an entire piece on the brilliance of Renge’s character. Creative, perceptive, intelligent, unusually low energy until adorably excited, at times down right philosophical, and comedically blunt, Renge is a loving little sister, best friend, and force to be reckoned.

Every character has their appeals and what I find equally impressive as the characters themselves is how natural their interactions felt and how well they play off each other. Despite ranging in grade from 1st to 8th, so from about age 6 through 13, I love how effortlessly their strong friendships form and how they take to one another. Hotaru’s powerlessness at viewing Komari with adoration, Komari getting riled up whenever referred to as short or thought of as a child, Natsumi knowing how to push her sister’s buttons or getting others in trouble alongside her, Renge’s ability to seamlessly banter with everyone one moment and completely stump them the next, these interactions are what brings immersion to the stories and gives them their brilliance. Even the interactions with our main group and the many minor characters is just as brilliant. Kaede, who runs the local candy store, finds herself the butt of jokes and many times a means to move a story along, but she also has this unique relationship with Renge which is always a pleasure to see when it does reveal itself. Though few in number, these moments of character development, even between the major and minor characters, propels this anime over the top.

As wonderful as these characters and the stories they share are, I am equally impressed with the quality of the visuals and audio. Starting with the visuals, I am completely impressed with the way everything is depicted. The efforts by the artists to bring the Japanese countryside to life is outstanding, as they excel at immersing its viewers with the levels of ambience and moods they’re capable of producing. The characters’ personalities shine with the quality of the animation and their depictions are not just accurate, but are far more vivid. The adaptation not only keeps them true to their manga counterparts, but also adds the energy and emotions that may not always come through with the manga.

The audio is also astounding, adding to the already remarkable visuals. The Japanese voice casting is brilliant and every actress accurately voices their characters similar to how I had imagined when reading the manga. And, whoever cast Kotori Koiwai as the voice of Renge is a genius. I could not have imagined that better. She brings so much more dimension to Renge’s character than the manga could hope to achieve. Beyond the voicing, the soundtrack is as lovely as the visuals, pairing nicely to complete that country ambience that can soothe any soul. The melodies match the events perfectly, whether it’s comedic, solemn, or idyllic, each song complements perfectly without ever sounding intrusive. Even the moments of silence to appreciate the scenery or when only the sound effects, such as cicadas buzzing during summer mornings or the bubbling of a stream, are playing, the effect and significance it brings is simply incredible. Overall, the visual and audio aesthetics really take the whole anime to another level, to the point which I couldn’t imagine the producers doing anything any better.

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Non Non Biyori is a gem. It won’t just succeed in relaxing you, it will do so exceedingly. I’m very glad to have watched it and I’m ecstatic that a third season is on the way (as of this writing). As strong as the manga is, with its unforgettable cast and witty stories, with all of the advantages of an anime adaptation and with such a high level of execution, I can say, after having read the first 5 volumes of the manga, that I enjoy the anime even more. Rarely does an adaptation match or outshine the source material, but this is definitely one of those few cases. If you haven’t had the pleasure or you need some relaxation, I highly recommend you give Non Non Biyori a watch, as I can assure you won’t be disappointed.

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For more information on the Non Non Biyori anime and manga, please visit the links below:

Blu-Ray available on Amazon

English translation of the manga provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

For more nyanpasu

Note: Images featured in this review have been compressed

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall Story” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″ cat2title=”Art & Animation” cat2detail=”” cat2rating=”5″ cat3title=”Music” cat3detail=”” cat3rating=”5″ ]

Anime Review: Non Non Biyori Title Non Non Biyori

#Atto #Iyashikei #Non Non Biyori #Non Non Biyori Repeat #nyanpasu #Seinen #Sentai Filmworks #SILVER LINK #slice of life #のんのんびより

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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The 10 Best Faces of Anime: 2017 Edition

The human face – one of our species' most entrancing, fascinating traits. Capable of revealing the depths of the bearer's soul or hiding a person's true intentions, the face is the external cradle of emotion, the heart's fairest and yet most complex messenger. Tonight, on NOVA...

Just kidding! You're not here for a deep dive into the nuances of human faces and delicate insights into what the expressions we make say about who we are, what's important to us, and the human psyche – you want some gosh dang goofy anime faces, and I'm here to provide. Good anime faces are one of the medium's greatest treasures, with each new season of anime bringing with it a brand-new set of contenders reaching for the crown of best anime face. Some of these contenders bide their time, breaking out truly stellar faces for a moment of ideal impact, while others seek to make their mark with torrents faces.

Let me tell you, it was no easy task to break down an entire year's worth of quality anime faces to a list of just ten of the best contenders, but I have tried my darndest and present before you the fruits of my labors. You can either read all the reasoning, or just look at the pictures and start yelling in the comments. Your choice! And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the top 10 best faces of 2017 anime!

#10. Aguri Dies (Gamers!, Episode 3)

Gamers! (Pine Jam, Summer 2017) was sneakily good in a lot of ways, feeding us rich material on the smugness of nerd self-deprecation, touching little reflections on romance, and a late bounty of dunks on video games courtesy of my favorite character in the show – Aguri. But there was one area where Gamers! needed no subtlety: its excellent face game. Trying to narrow down the faces from this show was a truly daunting task, but this one wins out for a number of reasons. First, the mismatched combination of heavy, marker-like lines and traditional thinner lines provides an odd contrast that frames Aguri's deformed facial features – her mouth trailing off her face is probably the detail that makes the whole thing work. But the most impressive thing about this face? I don't have the foggiest clue what it was in reaction to, but it still works devoid of any context. In many ways, that's emblematic of what makes silly anime faces great – their ability to stand on their own apart from the context of their show. How about that? Weren't expecting actual analysis on silly anime faces here, were ya!

#9. Jean's Smirk (ACCA, Episode 12)

This shot of Jean Otus from ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. (Madhouse, Winter 2017), on the other hand, is one of the most context-rich faces in today's list. While those of you who haven't seen ACCA might be able to appreciate the smug upwards tilt of Jean's mouth and his coy eyes, the people who did watch the show have the privilege of appreciating that this smile is the culmination of an entire show's worth of political intrigue, spywork, and plotting. The twist and triumph this one smirk represents gives the audience a sort of deep satisfaction that offers an entirely different sort of appeal from the instant amusement that your typical anime face grants – and that earns it a spot on this list.

#8. Sana's Pout (Alice & Zoroku, Episode 7)

There's your typical anime girl pout, and then there's filling up the entire darn screen with your pouting. Leave it to an actual sulking child, like Sana from Alice & Zoroku (J.C. Staff, Spring 2017), to pull a feat like that off. In fact, Sana pulls a plethora of fantastic faces throughout the duration of Alice & Zoroku, including a ton from my personal favorite anime face genre, then > <. That being said, there's no way a pout this powerful, which conveys both her childishness and her earnest cuteness in one shot, could be anything less than the show's best face – and one of the best of the entire year.

#7. Takao Melts (Tsuredure Children, Episode 3)

What other sort of face are you supposed to make when a pretty girl seems like she's about to confess to your extremely low self-esteem self? It was pretty much all out war in the Tsuredure Children (Studio Gokumi, Summer 2017) camp for this spot on the list, as the show's face game was, frankly, unbelievable – with wobbly mouth smiles, tears by the gallon, blushes so numerous they probably contributed to global warming, moments of shock, embarrassment, and awkwardness galore. But Takao's face here topped them all on two specific strengths. One, his head is very round. Two, the mix of sweat, full-face blush lines, pitch-perfect pink shading, and his huge mouth are a truly phenomenal combination that make it look like he's just about to melt. #relatable.

#6. Todoroki's Rage (My Hero Academia S2, Episode 7)

Todoroki takes a page out of All Might's book as he storms away from Endeavor in this scene from My Hero Academia's second season (BONES, Spring 2017), complete with the intense lines and dark shadows – except, in his case, it's a face chiseled by rage instead of heroism. Pretty much everyone knows about famous BONES animator Yutaka Nakamura's contributions to Todoroki's fight, but the figure behind this epic face is anime character designer and chief animation director Yoshihiko Umakoshi. Although this shot is based on mangaka Kohei Hirokoshi's excellent original drawing, Umakoshi's distinct style still shines through in the inky lines and sharp angles. In the end, the anime version isn't hugely different from the manga version, but it's got just enough extra style to stand all on its own. You can really feel Todoroki's fury!

#5. Drunk Chain (Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond, Episode 3)

What's better than a sexy werewolf lady who can crush your heart with her hand while it's still in your body? How about one who can drink you under the table without batting an eye, like Chain Sumeragi from Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond (BONES, Fall 2017)? While not the most intricate offering on the list, the simple chibi-like design is actually part of the face's charm. There's a pleasing asymetry to the whole thing, what with the back-and-forth linework of her mouth and the goofy puff of her left cheek. The empty shot glass of otherworldly liquor is just the chaser that makes the face irresistible.

#4. Gabriel's Stare Contest Face (Gabriel Dropout, Episode 10)

I didn't watch Gabriel Dropout (Dogakobo, Winter 2017) myself, but that doesn't mean I'm not familiar with the show's inescapably good face game. The studio behind GabDro, Dogakobo, has made a name for itself doing cartoony comedies with fun animation and great faces, and Gabriel Dropout is just another in a prestigious ouvre that includes cult favorites like Love Lab, widely beloved offerings like Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, and transcendent meme shows like Himouto! Umaru-chan, but on faces alone GabDro certainly stands on level ground with the rest of the studio's productions!

#3. Mikasa's Death Glare (Attack on Titan S2, Episode 11)

Can an anime face be just one eye? I'm not sure, but I'm sure as hell not going to argue with Mikasa Ackerman when she's looking at Eren like that! I'm not the biggest fan the show, but this chilling moment from Attack on Titan S2 (Wit Studio, Spring 2017) got my attention in a big way simply because of how much intensity and emotion was packed into a single open eye. The much-discussed makeup animation crew (more on that here) appeared many times during Titan's second season, but I'd argue this moment is their crowning achievement – if only for how impactful and terrifying it is.

#2. Sagiri's Bleh (Eromanga Sensei, Episode 6)

At this point in the list, we're well and truly into meme face territory, with Sagiri's infamous "bleh" face from the middle of Eromanga Sensei (A-1 Pictures, Spring 2017). I didn't watch the show myself, so I have basically no idea what the context is, but as we've discussed with some faces on this list already, many of the best anime faces are accomplished because they can be divorced from their shows. And, in the case of ones like this, they go on to become memes in their own right, ways of expressing emotion and feeling through our computer screens. Ah, for the face of an anime girl that expresses my true heart...

#1. Kazuma Looks Dumb as Hell (Konosuba S2, OP)

As much as it physically pains me not to have an Aqua screencap in this spot, was there ever any doubt that the most memorable anime face of 2017 would be this incredibly goofy Kazuma face from Konosuba S2 (Studio Deen, Winter 2017)? The face was an instant legend among the community as soon as the show aired, and went on to be discussed at length on Twitter, Reddit, and pretty much everywhere else for the entire season. As for the merits of the face itself, the bulging eyes, tiny pupils, streaming tears, garbled mouth, the general upwards slant of everything including Kazuma's hair, and the hilarity of the moment itself all pull together to make the best anime face of 2017.

And with that, I sincerely apologize for the fact that I could not fit more anime faces into this post. As a token of my regret, here is a small album of some of the runners-up that I compiled for you all. With that out of the way, it's time to hear from you guys! What was your favorite anime face of the year, and which anime had the best overall face game? Chime in down there in the comments!

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Isaac eases his compulsive need to write about anime on his blog, Mage in a Barrel. He also sometimes hangs out on Tumblr, where he mainly posts his drawing practice as he seeks to become a renowned idol and robot fanartist. You can follow him on Twitter at @iblessall or on Facebook.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Sakura Wars Review (PS4) — The Dream is Back

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

While it has been a long wait, Sakura Wars is a satisfying blend of everything that the franchise has done well for a new generation on PS4.

Claiming that Sakura Wars (aka Sakura Taisen) is a huge franchise is an understatement. The steampunk, East meets West stylized series featuring courageous women who act as a theater revue by day and fight demons at night left a huge mark on Japanese pop culture and on anyone who encountered it. When Sega and Red Entertainment released the first Sakura Taisen game on Sega Saturn in 1996, it made history with its peculiar aforementioned mix of genres and atmospheres. Most notably, it mixed various dating simulator, tactical RPG, and adventure elements (what we commonly call visual novels in English) together. By far, it wasn’t the first game that strove to create mixes like these. Red Entertainment themselves weren’t at their first attempt, as Sakura Taisen followed in the footsteps of games such as the Galaxy Fräulein Yuna series.

Sakura Taisen, however, is the first franchise of its kind that managed to reach such mainstream stardom, at least in Japan. This is in part thanks to a very unorthodox idea back then that the franchise pulled off. The seiyuu, Japanese voice actresses and actors, of Sakura Taisen would all regularly hold “Kayou Shows”–musicals similar to the ones that players experienced in-game–that greatly contributed to establish the franchise’ cult status. Putting the seiyuu themselves in the spotlight through stage events, streams and radio shows is usual nowadays, but it was a very novel idea back then, as Sakura Taisen‘s original author Oji Hiroi recently pointed out. Today, many game and anime franchises all do their own stage play musicals in the same vein.

While the Sakura Taisen series reached a conclusion with Sakura Taisen 4 in 2002, followed by a standalone Sakura Taisen V in 2005 (the sole episode that officially left Japan), the series never truly stopped. Indeed, the mainline game part stayed dormant, but anime, manga adaptations and spinoffs, mobile games, apparitions in crossovers such as Project X Zone, and real life events such as art expositions kept it rolling around over the years. And last but not least, the Kayou Shows continued for all these years. Fan demand for a new game never relented, and Sakura Taisen is such a big piece of Sega’s (and gaming) history that culturally and business-wise, a game comeback was only a matter of time. When, and how, were the main questions. And the answer is this brand new PlayStation 4 game, titled Shin Sakura Taisen/New Sakura Wars in Japan, and simply rebranded as Sakura Wars overseas.

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Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

Sakura Wars, the PS4 game, is the first main game of the series in 15 years. Officially announced in March 2018 and revealed in March 2019, Sakura Wars is Sega’s attempt to fully relaunch the franchise worldwide, hence why a localization in multiple languages was announced from the get-go. The game is accompanied with its own novel, manga, and a multitude of new crossover collaborations and goods. Seeing the game is already available in Japan since December 2019, an anime sequel also started this April. A stage play was planned as well, but was sadly canceled due to COVID-19.

To be honest, as I relentlessly covered Sakura Wars news via the monthly streams that Sega organized for the game, part of myself was scared. I asked a lot of different questions to myself: “What if the game sucks? What if they only show the good parts on stream? What if I end up hating it?” I’ve rarely been this scared of being disappointed when it comes to my hobbies. It would have been incredibly painful to see the series fail its comeback and fall into oblivion. As I grabbed the game in Japanese, part of my doubts were dispelled after spending some time on it. I even attempted live translating part of the game to show my enthusiasm and spread awareness. Now with this English version, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the game, and I can finally affirm this now, with conviction: Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

“Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such.”

Sakura Wars works both as a sequel and as a reboot. The game’s intro explains how the cast from the previous games all disappeared after a decisive battle against the demons, and introduces instead a brand new cast of main characters. Players are put in the role of Seijuro Kamiyama, a young, talented ex-marine ship captain, who’s now assigned as the captain of the Flower Division. The Flower Division is the core battle and theater unit of the Imperial Combat Revue, protecting Tokyo from demons. All big cities in the current world of Sakura Wars similarly have their own Combat Revues, and they are about to participate in a big tournament to hone their skills. However, the Imperial Combat Revue is facing both a financial and identity crisis, and it’ll be up to Kamiyama to give the Flower Division members the trust they need to overcome their issues and win the tournament, all while fighting off a new demon threat.

You might be wondering why I’ve yet to touch upon the gameplay aspect of Sakura Wars in this review, but you’ve actually been experiencing it already if you’ve read this far. Just like its predecessors, Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such. You’ll be spending the vast majority of your time in the game reading the dialogue and events unfolding as you control Kamiyama and interact with the characters.

The game reintroduces the series’ LISP system, which are short-timed dialogue choices selected with the directional stick. This aims to make the players realistically think about their words and strengthen immersion. Most of the time, players will have a clear choice between either acting in a positive and gentle way (Top Choice), in a harsh and stern way (Left Choice), or being some kind of creep or clown (Right Choice). Beyond these obvious dialogue choices, you’ll have to do your best to figure out the characters’ feelings, as always picking cliche anime lines about friendship and love won’t work. Kamiyama himself isn’t a self-insert; he has his own personality, and will choose his own words in certain crucial moments, where you’ll instead be urged to pick the intensity of said words.

“All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D.”

The true difference in Sakura Wars compared to its predecessors isn’t the change from a tactical RPG system to action RPG elements for its battles; I’ll get to that later. It’s the fact that the game has switched to full 3D. This is a revolution for the series, and Sega made the best out of it. The past games let you roam around the Imperial Theater, which is the Imperial Combat Revue’s base of operations, via a 2D map where characters were represented in Super-Deformed, SD style. When you triggered dialogue with other characters, the games switched to a visual novel-like style, with the characters illustrated with 2D artworks and occasional anime cutscenes. It had (and still has) its charm.

On the opposite side, Sakura Wars lets you explore its environments in full 3D. This choice wasn’t simply fueled by a desire to make the series more appealing to a new generation of players. All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D. Exploring the Imperial Theater and the city has never felt so rewarding and immersive. While each area barring the Imperial Theater is quite small, they are packed with small details, fun NPCs, and points of interests. Kamiyama’s own thoughts and observations when inspecting elements will evolve together with the story. Sakura Wars is full of intricate world-building, most notably thanks to the contribution of military specialist and world setting advisor genius Takaaki Suzuki. Simply heading to your next main objective pointed out on the Teletron, Kamiyama’s steam-technology powered smartphone, will probably only make you experience half of the game. You’ll end up missing a myriad of optional events, which aren’t necessarily pointed out on the map, Bromides to collect (photographic portraits of the characters), minigames, and lore.

The most striking aspect introduced thanks to 3D is how Sakura Wars handles its dialogue and events. Nearly all the dialogue is presented through in-engine cutscenes, and each one is stunning. Except during their pre-rendered cutscenes, I dare you to find any other typically Japanese game with as much camerawork, screenplay, and especially lively characters during dialogue. Be it Yakuza, Persona, the Tales series, Ni no Kuni, or any offerings from smaller independent studios like Falcom or Nippon Ichi Software, the characters will most certainly simply be standing there when chatting. Most of the time in several of those games, you will be cycling through minimal, prepared in-advance movements and expressions.

Meanwhile, Sakura Wars feels as if specific movement patterns and facial expressions were tailor-made for every single dialogue in the game. They’re always on-point with the discussion and emotions conveyed by the characters. This is so disconcerting compared to what Japanese games usually offer that I’m convinced some players will dislike how the characters in Sakura Wars are constantly in movement. In-universe it makes perfect sense, as the members of the Combat Revues are all used to performing arts and expressing themselves with their bodies.

“Only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced.”

As for the ever-changing expressions of the characters, you might have heard how multiple artists have worked on Sakura Wars. The original character design of the main cast was handled by Bleach‘s Kubo Tite. Other original character designers handled side characters in the game, and we have K-On‘s Yukiko Horiguchi, Sword Art Online‘s Bunbun, Strike Witches‘ Fumikane Shimada, Pokemon‘s Ken Sugimori, Haruhi Suzumiya‘s Noizi Ito, and Persona‘s Shigenori Soejima. However, it’s important to note that similarly with an anime’s production, another single character designer redrew all the designs so that they’re easy to animate and more uniform. That task was handled by Masashi Kudo, who did a terrific job. In fact, Masashi Kudo in the past did the exact same job with Kubo Tite’s designs on the Bleach anime. As such, there’s absolutely no sense of disunity when it comes to the characters’ designs, despite the various artists.

Sadly, overall, I’d say only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced. Sega’s auditioning for the game, which included singing–seeing as each character has their own theme song–brought us an all-star and talented cast of seiyuu. It’s a huge shame they didn’t get to fully demonstrate their skills. Pre-rendered anime cutscenes are back too, and are in 3D as well. These were handled by famous 3D anime studio Sanzigen. Ironically, the sole lackluster visual aspect of Sakura Wars lies in some of its 2D illustrations used to depict certain scenes in the game, with some of them being of varying quality. Going out of your way to interact with the characters and experience as much of the dialogue as possible, the core gameplay will have a direct influence on the minor gameplay elements, the battles.

“Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience.”

Each story chapter in Sakura Wars follows a typical mecha anime pattern, with the characters heading to sortie near the chapter’s conclusion, setting up a fight scene for the climax. Characters in the Sakura Taisen franchise fight demons using Combat Armors, which are mecha powered by steam and magical spirit energy, mixing steampunk and fantasy elements. This is where a stern warning is due: you definitely shouldn’t expect to be playing a traditional JRPG. Sakura Wars and its predecessors do not feature numbers to grind, equipment to maintain and skills to learn. The only variable which makes your characters stronger, or weaker, are their Trust Levels, the only way to influence Trust Levels are through your dialogue choices. There’s no real changes to the battle system throughout the whole game, except for Team Attacks that you’ll unlock as you increase Trust.

The battle stages aren’t that big and are globally pretty easy. If you do get a game over, you’ll always be able to restart with extra help. While there are many different types of enemies, none of them will stay etched in your memory. The only exception are the bosses, all introduced with huge on-screen Kanji, following Sakura Taisen tradition, and something you might be acquainted with through Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles.

As an important note, the battle system of the original Japanese release of the game had no lock-on system and instead used an automatic homing function, which made it hard to hit flying enemies, most notably. This isn’t a problem anymore as a patch has long been released, adding a lock-on system, a better radar, limited button remapping, being able to save anytime, and last but not least, a dialogue log with voice playback. These improvements will be included in the Western version, so make sure to download the day one patch. However, the patch was only made available to reviewers a little bit before embargo, so some reviews might mistakenly point out these faults, even though they are now patched.

In any case, you’ll only be fighting for around 20 minutes for about every 3 hours of gameplay, and despite being so simple, the battles are still fun and do their job well. The battles, like the rest of the game, are also filled by cool dialogue and incredible cutscenes, including dialogue choices. The music by the legendary Kohei Tanaka (One Piece, Gravity Rush, among others) is always on-point as well, and it’s the combination of these factors that makes these climaxes so awesome. But ultimately, the battle system of Sakura Wars in itself is marginal. Rather than changing from a tactical RPG to action RPG, the battle system might as well have switched to Sega’s match-three puzzle game Columns, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience. Japanese games tend to traditionally include a stereotypical cast, which gradually shows its uniqueness as you play. Sakura Taisen is and always was the culmination of this concept. The protagonists fight to protect the world and follow huge cliches based on their country of origin. The villains simply wish to see humans suffer for no reason. Everything is cheesy, but it works terribly well. The original script, written by 428 Shibuya Scramble‘s director Jiro Ishii, doesn’t stray from these traditions of the Sakura Taisen series, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Each chapter mostly focuses on a single main character, but all the others will play a role too. This is especially true for the second half of the game, when all the characters have already gone through a good chunk of development. Each character’s individuality slowly unveils itself through the multitude of dialogue events, and you just can’t help but fall in love with the characters.

Ultimately, while we might call it a dating sim, Sakura Wars is quite different from most. Of course, in the same vein as its stereotypical characters and plot, Sakura Wars is also filled with cliche anime situations. Kamiyama often finds himself in “lucky pervert” incidents depending of your choices. I’d add Sakura Taisen is one of the few franchises that manages to make sexual fan service moments and “romantic comedy” misunderstandings like these actually comedic and funny. Still, you shouldn’t expect anything steamy to happen, as even the unlockable optional flirting scenes are very tame. Indeed, your true goal in Sakura Wars isn’t to whoo girls, it’s to make the team members feel at home and have a place where to belong. I believe this is why the nomenclature of the series always used “Trust Levels” instead of “Affection” or “Love” levels.

Moreover, while we control Kamiyama, the true protagonist of this new Sakura Wars is Sakura Amamiya, the most devoted member of the Flower Division, who aims to restore the Imperial Combat Revue to its former glory. While the game includes a dive into each main character’ psychology and worries, everything revolves around Sakura Amamiya. She’s the sole character on the game’s case artwork, the first character you see in the opening anime sequence, and she’s the one getting a typical mecha anime midseason upgrade. It’s not a baseless choice as to why the ongoing manga version and sequel anime both put the spotlight on her.

Sakura Wars might even be too much centered around Sakura Amamiya at times. Most side characters, and those who belong to the other Combat Revues fought during the tournament, barely interact for most of the game with the main cast besides Kamiyama and Sakura Amamiya. Moreover, while the tournament battles are centered around 3 vs 3 team battles, only two members of each Combat Revue we face off against are introduced. Their third combatant is always a nameless, faceless character we’re never introduced to.

Nonetheless, in Sakura Wars the girls are always the true stars of the stage. This approach is one of the many reasons why the franchise as a whole is so inspiring and attractive to anyone, despite being a dating simulator for hetero male anime otaku. Furthermore, Sakura Amamiya idolizes Sakura Shinguji, one of the main characters of the past games in the series, which brings us to the final important point; how meta this Sakura Wars is.

“Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy.”

The first part of Sakura Wars‘ story features an obsolete Imperial Combat Revue shunned by all and on the verge of shutting down. It’s almost as if the game is reflecting the image of the franchise itself in the eyes of younger folks who didn’t live through it. Then, you’d be amazed at the numbers of NPCs who trashtalk the new characters while singing the praise of the old ones. Sega is fully aware of grumpy fans who claimed on social media that instead of a new cast, they’d rather have the ex-main characters back even if they were into their senior years. Players can regularly learn about the previous cast via the Imperial Theater’s archives, with Kamiyama sharing words of admiration. And then you have Itsuki, an embodiment of the good fan, with whom you can fangirl with while chatting about both the old and new characters.

As a newcomer or as an oldtimer, your overall opinion of the game and its characters will grow positively as you play, exactly mirroring how the Imperial Combat Revue slowly regain its fame through the main story, making for a unique experience. Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy. I clearly remember the excitement I’d feel when I was a kid looping the Sakura Taisen games’ anime opening sequences while dreaming of playing the series. Experiencing Sakura Wars on PS4 feels exactly like that. The dream is back.

Before concluding, I’d also throw in a word regarding the English localization of Sakura Wars. As I mentioned earlier on, I’ve partly played the Japanese version, and I must say that the English translation is amazing. Despite the Japanese heavy setting, It doesn’t go with the simple choice of keeping Japanese terms and honorifics, and yet still retains what makes the series’ atmosphere so unique, and conveys everything that needs to be conveyed. Every ten lines I was in awe and reminded of how much I suck as a translator.

In conclusion, while Sakura Wars never feels like it cuts corners, you can clearly tell, with the lack of full-voice acting or the nameless third combatants thing, that Sega didn’t fully believe in themselves. Sega is incredibly eager to make the series reach glory again, and brought to the development team all-star artists, writers and seiyuu, but at the same time was reluctant and wary. They believed in this comeback but lacked conviction to put more resources on the table, which is slightly disappointing. A more ambitious and polished sequel would definitely have the potential to become one of the most iconic Japanese games in years, similarly to Persona 5. With full voice acting this time, even denser content, more interactions between the main and side casts, and an attempt to make the battle parts into something more than narrative climaxes, you’d have the formula for a masterpiece. Sales would follow suit, boosting the franchise’s popularity worldwide, and we could even see the past games finally get official localization.

Unless you religiously scorn the act known as reading, there is absolutely no reason to avoid grabbing Sakura Wars on PS4. If you’ve read the integrity of this review, you need to hurry up and grab the game right the hell now. It’ll make you discover a fresh universe full of surprise. If you’re a complete stranger to this culture, it will surely be the game that makes you realize what’s so good about Japanese games, anime and manga. In an era where the most exported Japanese cultural products are battle stories inspired by Dragon Ball, playing Sakura Wars can be a gateway that will definitely broaden your horizons.

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-review-ps4-the-dream-is-back

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