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The Seto Compendium
Terminal Sarcasm: It's all in the
Mind. |
A n i m e
Anime Reviews in 10 Seconds or Less!!
Bleach
This is a series I quickly got hooked on, just because of the main
character was done really well (the "violent guy with terrible
attitude but heart of gold with crazy martial arts skills") was
friggin hilarious in the first episode, and was
worth watching a second ep for. Ichigo's attitudes towards most ppl is
generally either indifference, or a kick in head. But nothing beats
Kon, the spirit equivalent of a person genetically modified for war,
who gets shoved into a teddy bear (why?
well, telling would give too much of the story away). Think a
super-deranged Solid Snake in a teddy bear, and you've got a fair
idea. Basically, storyline as follows: everyday punk becomes a God of
Death (no, seriously), and slays malevolent evil
spirits (most likely inspired from evangelion Angels, but not quite as
BIG) with a Cloud Strife-sized sword. Normally this would be boring or
cheezy, but with Ichigo's bad attitude, it works. Quick roster
rundown:
Kurosaki Ichigo - everyday punk and overall violent person
becomes God of Death. It's funny just by itself.
Kuchiki Rukia - actual God(dess) of Death. Her human form intro
is great (it involves "Make a scene, and I'll kill you")
Inoue Orihime - big-breasted dunce with (later) crazy powers,
commands Final Fantasy X's Magus Sisters (or close enough)
Sado Yasutora ("Chad") - 7ft giant, who's friggin
indestructable (a STEEL GIRDER falls on him, no problem)
Point in case : When someone tells you to RUN, under any context, RUN,
dammit! It's really annoying when someone who sees looming Hugeass
Monster of Death (who's invisible to normal people) tells innocent
people to run, they're more prone to stand still and make fun of this
person or question why they should run instead of running. It's kinda
infuriating there are people that stupid, even if it IS an anime. (I
generally think that those who stick around deserve what's coming....dammit
when
someone tells you to run, RUN)
Macross: Do you Remember Love?
This series screams Old School Anime at you, in spades. Old-style
meticulously hand-drawn anime are hard to find, and it kinda blows you
away when you see that artists literally drew whole mechas by
hand...that's just...wow. Anyway, on with the
story:
Hugeass ugly humanoid male aliens (Zentraedi) attack mothership/mecha/spaceship-city/remnants-of-all-mankind-in-a-bottle,
humans fight back. Zentraedi capture humans, horrified to learn that
their men and women of the species can actually live together,
especially without killing each other (no, seriously). (sidenote:
protoculture species create hugeass man, hugeass women, and puny
man/woman. Hugeass man and hugeass woman start fighting, last a couple
eons. Protoculture says 'screw this' and leaves the galaxy when war
gets out of hand. Puny man/woman caught in middle of said hugeass war,
in the process evolving into modern-day humans). Stupid singing girl
gets in the way of everything, somehow manages to stop bigass bloody
war, everybody's happy.
Really good anime, except for really bad songs by Lynn Minmay, who's
supposed to be a pop star. HOW she becomes a pop star, I haven't the
foggiest. Voice is good, songs REALLY suck.
To summarize, I leave you with the an ancient Zentraedi paraphased
proverb:
"Don't screw with the puny humans. They'll destroy you if you do."
Macross Zero
First, Let's just get this out of the way: it's all about the CGed
Macross dogfights, which look AMAZING. Basically, story goes like
this: war against UN Spacy and some resistance group gets some tribe
caught in middle, which hold key to ancient
superweapon of mutual nasty death. Hero meets girl (the Priestess of
Wind of this tribe) in process. Both sides now seek this superweapon
of death. Tormented girl triggers superweapon of death, which now
attacks both sides with reckless abandon. Boy meets girl again,
destroys superweapon, which happens to have in turn destroyed bad guys
before dying. Hero gets girl, the end.
Of course, the dogfights look friggin amazing, especially the missile
salvos. Unfortuneately, they don't transform as much, and except for
the second episode, battroid fights are VERY brief and thus,
disappointing. They still like their "bottom of
cockpit, looking up at pilot during maneuvers" view, which is kinda
annoying, which probably came from Top Gun, which I hated then too.
Digimon
Yes, Digimon. Not quite what you'd expect with my level of
cynicism, but here goes. I actually liked the first and second seasons
of Digimon, the first (and probably only) kid's show that got
everything right, except for the opening, which is always understood
to be terrible (look at Escaflowne japanese opening and digimon's
japanese openings). Well, granted, the first season's "save the
digiworld" was kinda dry, only because we've seen those kind of plots
over and over too many times
before. That being said, I REALLY liked the way it got mixed with the
"real world" (The Eighth Child arc).
Anything after the first and second season sucked, just because it
Pokemon-ed : cartoon became a half-hour commercial.
Azumanga Daioh!
Azumanga Daioh, in a very quick description, is friggin
hilarious. Besides the obviously cute image (and the target
girl audience), got many, many in-jokes. It's also insanely cute, but
not dangerously so, as say, Chobits. Worth a look.
Hunter X Hunter Greed Island Final
HxH G-I Final is finally over, after Gon, Killua and Biscuit
trounce the Bomber Buddies (okay, that's not what they're called, but
hey, they sound cute now). With Gon's newfound power (after winning
the game, the first and only to do so after the game started 10 years
ago), he decides to seek out his father with a sure-fire way: using G-I's
Accompany card. He uses it and finally meets.....Kaito???
Naruto - Again...
Well, after a short interlude starring Sasuke's older
brother (who is infinitely badass, for the moment), we go back to
Orochimaru, who doesn't seem to die properly. But then he has Kabuto,
who can fight practically anyone evenly, and who's roughly as good as
Kakashi-sensei. Plus, he looks damn cool while doing it (especially
while dumping all those Naruto clones in the opening credits). Then
there's this obscenely big-breasted lady Tsunade who becomes the Fifth
Hokage. Well, this series seems unending....
Full Metal Alchemist
An anime with potential, it involves two young kids who tried
a rather...forbidden experiment that goes horribly wrong. Of course,
it gives our heroes superkickycool powers, with which they try to undo
the crap that they did to themselves. Starts off slow, but I'm waiting
for it to actually GET somewhere....
Hikaru no Go
Boy is possessed with long-dead spirit to play games. Now
where did I hear this before? It's less like Yu Gi Oh!'s "Let's get
them, Yugi!" and more like "Canweplaysomego?Huh?Huh?Canwe?Canwe?PleaseHikaru??"
And, like a proper 14th-century reincarnated spirit should, wondering
what the hell 20th-century technology is. Thankfully, the "one-card"
win of Yu Gi Oh! is gone, replaced by knock-down drag-out
tedious-watching games that anyone this side of the Pacific will have
no hope in figuring out what the hell the game's about, or figuring
out the strategy. Also thankfully, the more tedious moments of a game
are skipped, showing generally the first couple of moves, then
skipping to the last couple of moves. Story? What story?
Naruto - Kickstarted!
Naruto finally gets a much-needed kick-start after a couple
eps of people talking too much with the chuunin exams, which is, more
or less, nonstop fighting. NICE. Of course, all the generic guys lose,
and all the freaks win. Nothing quite beats the first-round chuunin
exam though (a must-watch). Although we don't quite see as much "neat
stuff" we saw (ie the fuuma shuriken strategy against Zabuza) but damn
addictive anyway. Anyway, onto that snake-freak Oroochimaru
versus....old man Hokage??? I guess old people do kick ass. In martial
arts, anyways.
Hunter X Hunter - Yup, it's back, after an absence of....8 months???
Hunter X Hunter is finally back, starting with Greed Island
after disappearing off the radar for....8 months?! They sure took
their time. While nothing particularly new, it's a good series, so
it's same ol', same ol'. Gon and Killua are now even more crazy
powerful despite all those other insane psychos that inhabit Greed
Island. Killua does his Hunter Exam. The first exam? Get five
candidate number tags within two hours. An hour and a half later, he's
dragged out a bag of 'em, having KO'ed EVERYONE in the room (more than
1400 ppl total). All I can say is, thank god Hisoka wasn't in the
room.
Hikaru no Go - Let's Go! (Bad pun, not mine, thankfully)
Let's see...ancient spirit possess boy to play games...where
have we seen this before? Oh. Yeah. Yu Gi Oh. But then, this thing
came out years before Yu Gi Oh did. Oh well. At least there's no
"only-one-card-can-save-me-oh!-there-it-is!" moments. Making an anime
on the Japanese equivalent of chess...I think anime studios have too
much money on their hands.
Yu Yu Hakusho - Have fun while you're dead....
If there are some
among you kids who think that anime is remotely real, then this
is one that you don't try, anytime. Anyway, low-down good-for-nothing
is suddenly redeemed in a single instant when he saves a kid from an
oncoming car. Of course, he's now dead, floating around in limbo, try
to earn the right of re-incarnation. Anyway, being dead now gives him
access to Dragon-ball style powers (Kamehameha wave-style energy beams
and all of that stuff). Kids, getting yourselves killed will not make
you like Goku. I'm pretty sure of this. Of course, me and my friends
were kinda bored when we picked this up, and watched about a DVD's
worth, and can't really figure out the plot, besides the obvious "ain't
too bad to be dead" thing.
Rave - One of the million out there...
Nuthin' special about this one, except that it may have a
hope: it didn't disgust me, nor did it wow me, but its just one of
those .... million other similar series out there, most, if not all,
get their asses kicked by Naruto hands-down.
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu - Fumo!
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu is definitely one of the best
anime out there. If you think of Full Metal Panic episode 1 and all
the shit that Sagara pulls off, then multiply that by about 11, then
you have a fair idea of what the series is about. Of course, with the
need for Chidori's dedicated protection (for better or worse) more or
less over, he's now free to use his...talents on a much broader scale.
Nice guy that he is, he'll set high-voltage traps to ensure that
people are safe from whatever dangers that they need protection from,
arbitrarily plant landmines, and whatnot. Then there's this Student
Body President Hayashimizu guy who always sides with Sagara,
which pretty much gives him a license to blow shit up; left, right,
and centre. And for more high-risk operations, he employs the use of
what I call the "6-foot teddy bear gundam": Bonta-kun. Imagine your
favourite teddy bear, more than life-sized, armoured and armed to the
teeth, and you've pretty much nailed this. Add wanton and completely
reckless use of weapons (non-lethal rounds, mind you) and a very
liberal mix of explosives and incendiaries, with the military
mentality "everything can be solved with explosives" (actual Marine
engineering corps axiom, believe it or not), and you've got Fumoffu.
But cuter, and a hell of a lot funnier.
One Piece - Pirates?!
One Piece is yet another example of how looney Japanese
people come up with ideas: pirates?! who the hell gives a damn about
pirates? There is nothing cool about pirates! Anyway, Disney aside,
someone did, and someone gave half a damn. First of all, characters
look like absolute crap, and look like badly done prerendered
drawings. Second of all, strangely, the backgrounds are in an
incredibly well done watercolour, which really says something about
their priorities. Strange fruit giving magical powers?? Sounds like a
Freaks R Us to me. However, the sole badass character Zoro who wields
three swords at once (one in each hand, one in his mouth,
dammit!) makes up for a lot of shortcoming, and thank god he joins the
party fast. And then there's that pirate girl, who robs pirates
when they're away robbing someone else. Funny and ironic, yes, but
hardly worth watching.
Overall, looks like a Hunter X Hunter reject. Bah. I'll keep with
my Naruto and Hunter X Hunter, thank you very much.
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu - The way FMP! was supposed to
be?
Supposedly it follows the manga much more closely (and it
does), which means less mecha combat side story and more gun-toting
badass Sagara's antics in a high school.
This time, the school administration knows he comes from a
war-torn country (Afganistan?) and says that he must be given time to
adjust to peaceful, modern Japanese society. Long story short, it
means that he's allowed to do the shit he does, and we don't
have a damn problem with that. Of course, Mithril did
make a healthy...contribution to the school.
He finds that someone has been in his shoe cabinet, so to do
the safest thing, he---throws a slab of C4 and a blasting cap, puts up
a blast shield, and blows the whole cabinet to smithereens. Of course,
the only thing the Student Body President has to say is "That's
appropriate" given the circumstances.
Suffice to say, the Sagara and Chidori team both do a lot of
funny shit. Of course, this doesn't include the fact that Sagara must
make use of his Glock 19 at least once in each episode. Minimum, and
I'm not talking about how many times he uses it, but what he
actually uses.
The Vision of Escaflowne - Fox, the eternal irony
Fox had ingeniously decided to buy the licensing for the
Vision of Escaflowne a couple years ago. Then after a mere 10 or so
eps, it suddenly disappeared off the airwaves, only to be replaced
by...NASCAR Racers. Good god.
Now, I have a theory. They most likely saw the first couple
of eps, and probably called it a magical-girl-and-mecha-fighting kind
of series, and seeing that it might cater to both tweenage girls and
boys, and bought the rights. Most likely, during their internal
screening, they probably found out that "magical-girl-and-mecha-fighting"
turned into a "bloody-apocalyptic-holy-war" kind of thing instead.
Suffice to say, Fox lost a boatload of cash, the Japanese
started laughing, and I suppose it's safe to say that someone at Fox
Kids was shot, and others probably lost their jobs.
YTV, catering itself to tweenagers, snapped it up, and Fox was
eager to cut their losses. Instead, all of The Vision of Escaflowne
aired. Twice. At least. That I know of. This probably prompted Saban
Entertainment to release the DVD Collection, that would have otherwise
died a rather horrible death.
I suppose it's safe to say that someone else at Fox Kids was
shot, and others fired for THIS blunder.
The censors probably lost their heads after cutting too much,
say, Van cutting this thumb in the "blood pact" with Escaflowne, whose
magnitude is roughly the equivalent of cutting out EVA-01's Berserker
attack on the first Angel. Oops. Got ahead of themselves, they did.
Maybe they decided to go for a more tried-and-true anime to air.
Like Inu Yasha.
Hunter X Hunter - OVA
Kurapica continues on his vengeance spree. While he was kind
of a Quatre-type kinda guy (except not obviously gay like Quatre) in
the TV series, now he's just a one-minded bloodthirsty psycho maniac.
This, of course, confirms the fact that there is no such thing as
moderation in anime.
Witch Hunter Robin - When people try too hard....
Great, yet another anime series. Alright, let's do this quick
and easy. btw, whoever did this series must have had one hell of a
funding 'cause all the occasional CG looks damn good. First we
have something like a "Buffy with guns" organization with the
obligatory completely-random name. Second, this is possibly one
of the most cliched kind of anime shit, the kind of "tries to be cool"
whenever this kind of thing blows over. Everyone has a heavy goth
thing, apparently, irritating me to the point that I want Alucard of
Hellsing to just show up with his 13mm handgun and truly
badass-attitude to just blow Robin's scrawny ass into the middle ages
where she belongs. Then we have this co-star of sorts, the
"moody-aloof-guy-in-the-corner-badass-skills" kind of guy. Then
whenever you see this guy he's in the corner with his back turned,
looking slightly over his shoulder, wearing a black flowing
trench-coat. Seriously, THIS GUY TRIES TOO HARD TO BE COOL IT'S
ANNOYING. Great, now we call upon Sagara Sosuke to sneak up behind him
and snap this guy's scrawny neck like a twig to show him how
badass-ness is supposed to be. Ah hell, screw it, I'll do it.
Gimmie a sec - -
*snap*
*thud*
I My Me! Strawberry Eggs - Weird.
Seriously, the Japanese have problems to have come up with
this series. Guy gym teacher cross dresses to get a job into girls'
private skool. Add up that the guy has to appear um, ah,
anatomically correct to get the position. Of course, we have the
now-hot looking teacher (how a guy becomes a good-looking girl is, of
course, messed up as-is) and a cute innocent-girl co-star, which
immediate drops the series several hundred notches on the
"cool-o-meter". It was roughly this point that me and my friends,
fearing a possible gay and child porno mix in a single hit,
immediately stopped watching. This is one series they're not brining
over, and that's for DAMN sure. Sickos.
Teknoman - Ghetto goodness!!
I have found and downloaded all of Teknoman, the North
American name of Tekkaman Blade, in all its ghetto greatness. Of
course, the Japanese version would have been better, but I don't think
subtitles were very popular in the late '80s and early '90s. So, we're
left with bad-quality .WMVs but goddamn it so old its cool.
Hunter X Hunter - A Boy, a Doctor, a Bounty Hunter, an Assassin and a
messed-up clown
Hunter X Hunter is definitely one of the more "fun" anime out
there. Basically, there are a group of people out there who are called
Hunters who can essentially do whatever the hell they want, which
means that they would have to be pretty badass to get one of those
licenses. Anyway...young kid, wants to find his dad, goes through
exams, get friends. Pretty cliched, huh? Friends, on the other hand,
consist of a wussy wanna-be doctor, some calm, logical guy wielding
linked swords who is out for revenge on a group of elite assassins who
killed his clan, and a kid who's the successor to a family of crazy
assassin people (now THIS is a dysfunctional family!). You'd be
surprised how close this mirrors Naruto. Starts off nice, but the
latter story really gets stupid. Oh yeah, and there's also this psycho
clown who's freaky powerful. Japanese people have get out of those
oxygen bars.
Great Teacher Onizuka - Good morning, badass-sensei!
Onizuka Eikichi, 22 years old. Legendary biker gang leader,
pervert, dumbass, and overall King of Badasses. Oh, and teacher. (How
the hell did this guy pass a Criminal Check?) Anyway, this is a guy
who has morals in his heart, his head and eyes in the stars, a cig in
his mouth, and his fist in some other guy's face, cause this guy
totally loses it when he's pissed. He's tortured his students, busted
holes in walls, trashed a single car thrice, and suplexed the
vice-principal. Not bad. General situation: naughty student(s) gets
caught by gang. Onizuka arrives, has fun with gang. Student(s)
apologize. Onizuka goes all out to beat living crap out of gang with
the most collateral damage possible. That, and the now-traditional
let's-fire-Onizuka-for- that-insane-shit-he-pull-last-night, and the
miraculous reprieve he gets. The end, everyone's happy, except the
censors, if they decide to bring it over, who will have one hell of a
job before them, given that our hero is a bad-mouthed badass pervert.
Macross Zero - Yet another excuse to watch stuff getting blown up
Seriously, do you need a storyline for a mecha series?
(Exception: Gundam) 'Cause everyone knows that the only reason you
have a storyline is to make an excuse to blow stuff up. Anyhoo,
Macross is the series to have the best transforming mecha, and
apparently they spent a LOT of money to convince us by shoving it in
our faces. And boy, did it work. Of course, throw in a story remotely
Biblical references or ancient lost civilization myths (remember, they
were called lost civilizations for a reason!) and we have an
anime series. Go figure.
Naruto - Ninjas on a sugar high
Another ninja anime. C'mon, do we really need another one?
Apparently so. Except it's a
demon-sealed-within-a-kid-trying-to-be-the-best-ninja-in-the-village
anime. I know, the idea has probably be beaten to death throughout the
ages, but it seems that it's not quite dead yet, so here comes another
series to put it out of its writhing misery. Throw in that dumbass kid
in a constant sugar-high and give him a shuriken and this is
the result. Although it oughta be hard to be the best ninja in
the village since everyone are ninjas. A kid-worthy
show, if it wasn't for all the gratuitous and plentiful bloody
violence. Hey, nothing's perfect.
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Quote
of the Month |
Quote
of the Month:
I wish
that we can invert programs. Say we wanted to build a plane that would
never crash. We could build a program that would crash the plane, then
invert it so that it will never crash. Wouldn’t that be great??
- Chris Kaplan, CS246 prof |
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Weblogs
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01.08.05 16:40
EST
Finally had the time to update this site, after an absence of a
REAL long time (since frosh week, maybe longer).
Anyway, starting this term at Scotiabank, network security dept.
This term oughta be fun.
Updates: Anime, Gundam, Mind
08.19.04 00:33
EST
Normal updates, nothing spectacular. Hey, I'm bored this term.
Updates:
Anime, The Mind, Old News
06.11.04 23:49
EST
Minor cosmetic changes to the site, just to give it somewhat of
a visual kick. I did it mainly just to make the page stand out a bit
more.
05.27.04 00:00 EST
Finally, an update! Got some time now, but since I get home
fairly late, I have to make the best of my time (yes, this
qualifies). I dropped the Rant, since I'm losing my cynical
viciousness. Also, read the disclaimer in Profile. It's worth
reading.
Updates: Anime, Gundam, Mind
03.17.04 22:49 EST
Limited, if very rare, update, since I'm in the middle of my
study term. Expect slow updates of the rest of my site as time
progresses. Of course, this study term might kill me, so no
guarantees. Oh yes, if I die, PS2 goes to Kelvin. Nice try, Derek.
Btw, some interesting stuff in The Mind recently. Might be worth a
look-see. I intend to (hopefully) throw up another Rant.
11.26.03 23:18 EST
Major revamp of the black-styled site to a refreshing stylish
white. Background to follow since I need to modify the cool GP03D
wallpaper, but right now it's conflicting with the page (ie you
can't read my stuff). I've added "Old News" section since
my main page is getting pretty damn big, so that's to minimize that.
The usual update to everything else...or pretty much everything
else.
10.27.03 08:57 EST
Updates will likely be scarce, since I'm likely wasting my time
playing SkyGunner or Raven Shield, now that I've got my PC
configured correctly. Minor update to The Mind, decent update to
Anime, somewhat bigger update to Archive, and a miniscule update to
Gundam. And, as before, this website does not exist if you ask me.
Main reason for small updates is simple: I haven't got any
significant change in my sarcastic bastard-ness. This elegantly
divides the masses between those who hate me, and those who love me;
black and white. Clever, no?
09.18.03 22:48 EST
Behold, for I update! Well, this update will include minor
changes to anime and a slightly updated anime and gundam, while
hopefully a massive change to The Mind. Officially, I am no good at
HTML and webpage design ( since teachers are going to be coming to
me asking to update their sites). Unofficially,
however, there's this. If asked, this page DOES NOT EXIST. And at
that point, The Seto Compendium, Dakkar, RiCeKiNg! or whatever name
I will be using for the month will disavow any knowledge of this
site and of my skills. That is all.
08.13.03 23:05 EST
Well lookee here! An update! Alright...The Mind is seriously
revamped to take advantage of my numerous rants and raves, rather
than my rather silly and stupid one-liners. Trust me, it's better
this way, and it'll be more fun. All sections are more or less
updated. (more or LESS, keep that in mind). My excuse for the late
update? University. School. Dai Hok. No,
seriously I don't understand why you would be so interested in this
site. No, really. I'm flattered, but also astonished at your
continuing perceived interest in this site...
06.05.03 12:59 EST
Yes, yes I know it's been over a month since I last updated. And
with good reason: university. Too much work, assignments, and
midterms. Hell, you should be lucky that I updated at all! Whew!
Well, midterms are comin' up, so it'll be longer still.
04.25.03 09:17 EST
A lot more updating done, and a good chunk of it. Gundam
and The Mind updated. I have also created an Advanced Wars FAQ of my
own (love the damn game) and my own compilation of Murphy's Laws of
Combat.
04.14.03 11:46 EST
All the pages are fully up (no longer just
"technically") Some are updated, others are not. And I'm
in the process of updating.
03.05.03 11:31 EST
Finally all the pages are up
(some are still empty) but they are, technically up. Not many
pictures and shit, but the simple and rather elegant design and
atmosphere should more than make up for it. It will still be a while
until Archives are filled since I will need to compile
everything for it. Home, Profile, and Gundam pages are fully up,
though. Anime, Archives, The Mind are up but more or less empty
until further notice.
02.23.03 19:56
EST v2.0
Ah, the glory of HTML and Frontpage. This may finally earn the title
of version2.0. Everything's been kicked up a notch, and if you've
noticed, looks a lot better, doesn't it? Rejoice, and be glad, and
may it see v3.0!!
02.22.03
Lo, and behold, Dakkar returns! Alrite, so this site heavily needed
a revamp, and after three years, mainly offtime, here it is! Except
for the frames, there's nothing else rite now.
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