Blast from the Past: Saint Seiya

While theres tonnes of good current anime and all, I still have a soft spot for a lot of the original animes and movies that I grew up watching. Saint Seiya was among the first shows I ever watched as a kid, and I really enjoyed it back then... but being in Australia, it was hard to get the whole series. I saw most of it, but there were missing episodes from my collection... which were given to me by relatives, or rented out from the chinese video store that my parents normally went to at the time.

Anyway, in this day and age... everything is available somewhere, and I managed to get all of the original seasons of Saint Seiya on DVD... and eagerly watched it. However when I watched it, I came to realise that there was a lot of useless repetitive dialogue, because Seiya is the most stubborn ass ever... and his fellow saints are no different. But it was still good to be able to see all of the episodes again, especially the ones that were missing from my childhood.

So the basic outline of the anime... Seiya is a ' bronze saint of Athena', which basically means that he is a warrior destined to protect the goddess Athena, who has reincarnated into a teenage girl named Saori... who incidently grew up with Seiya and the other bronze saints. There are 3 levels of saints under Athena; bronze, silver and gold... bronze being the weakest, and gold being the strongest. Each saint is based off something from greek mythology. The main characters are the bronze saints; Seiya (Pegasus saint), Shiryu (Dragon saint), Hyoga (Cygnus saint), Shun (Andromeda saint) and Ikki (Phoenix saint). In addition there are the silver saints, but you only see some of them during the early story arcs... the most important ones are generally the teachers to the bronze saints. The gold saints are based off the zodiac star signs.

So its a pretty typical good vs evil storyline, with battles between gods and goddesses + their saints/warriors. The first story arc the Sanctuary arc, which has multiple parts to it. The first part is based on the Black saints, which are essentially the dark versions of the main bronze saints... its more of an introductory season, where you find out a lot about each saint's past and how they eventually became a saint. This is followed by the introduction of the silver saints, and then later the 12 gold saints.

The second arc starts off with the Asgardians... but this is only in the anime, so I'm guessing it was a filler at the time. After that one is the Poseidon arc, where Seiya & Co have to fight Poseidon and his mariner generals.

The anime ended after the Poseidon arc. More recently the Hades arc was finally made into an anime, to continue on from where the Poseidon arc finished. The Hades arc sports much improved graphics and what I could only describe as 'special effects' for lack of a better description to animations for their special attacks. In this arc, the bronze saints along with the gold saints fight against Hades and his minions, which include; his 108 spectres, the 3 judges of the underworld, and the 2 gods Thanatos and Hypnos, who serve Hades. Quite an uphill battle! but was good to watch, if you ignore a lot of their stupid dialogue. The diaglogue is usually one particular sentence, but five different people speak a portion of the sentence. I guess its to illustrate that they were all thinking the same thing, but it annoying after a while.

A couple of months ago, the Saint Seiya Lost Canvas OVA began... which is much more to my liking. It is based on the previous holy war with Hades, with a different generation of saints. The OVA has a more modern feel to it... as it leaves out the terrible style of dialogue that old animes tend to have. It is also fairly fast paced, so you dont have those moments like in DBZ where they spend 2 episodes talking to each other and another 5 episodes charging up before they fight for a few minutes and someone wins.

So far onyl 4 episodes are out, but its well worth the watch even if you haven't seen any of the original Saint Seiya episodes before.

Overall I'd give the following ratings:

Sanctuary - 5/10

Asgard - 5/10

Poseidon - 7/10

Hades - 8.5/10

Lost Canvas - 9.5/10 (losing rating for taking a while to release!)

Now I would normally talk about the ladies of the anime... but there isnt that many in Saint Seiya... probably the one I liked most is Shaina... who is the Ochiuchus saint. She is a female warrior, so she must always wear a mask by Sanctuary law. If a man sees a female warrior's face, she must either kill that man or fall in love with him.

So heres a nice picture of her that I found without her mask:

And here is a picture of her with a gold cloth... although I have no idea where it came from, but she looks really nice with it!

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Saw the movie a couple of weeks ago I think, or maybe a bit longer than that. Anyway, like all of the Harry Potter movies from 3 onwards, the movie feels very rushed and many of the things from the book had to be cut to fit it all into a 2 hr movie. Personally I feel that it would've been a lot better if the movies were 3 hours long, so they could put in more of the important things that they missed out on, and make it seem like they're not just charging through the storyline. I guess they would argue that they can't do this because children won't be able to sit through the whole movie for that long... but I think the books are actually more suitable for late teenagers, rather say primary school kids. The first book was probably the only book that was suitable for children... the books following that involve more adolescent themes and violence.

Anyway, for those who aren't familiar with the Harry Potter series, this movie is an adaptation of the 6th book in the novel series. As you would've seen in the trailer, Dumbledore was going to tell Harry more of the history involved with Lord Voldemort. Unfortunately though... they didn't reveal all of what was shown in the book, and I feel that it was pretty important to have revealed all of it... however I guess they included the most vital ones, which they couldn't have avoided. I won't reveal anything in case people haven't read the books... but to say the least, I was a bit disappointed on that.

There were also a lot of minor things that were cut or done differently to the book. I guess when you have to cut a lot of various things, you also need to rearrange the story so that it flows better... but it does feel a bit weird when you're expecting it to be done a certain way, and it doesn't turn out like you expected. Perhaps its the downside of reading the book first... but overall I think its still better to read the book first.

One thing that kinda threw me off was that they show Tom Riddle in high school, but they used a different actor to the one from the diary in the 2nd movie. I guess the actor from back then would've gotten older by now... so thats probably why... but it seems odd that Tom looks so different hehe. Guess it can't be helped though.

Also, apparently the 7th book will be done in 2 movies... which imo is good. There are a lot of things to cover in the 7th book, and it would be a real shame if they had to cut half of it due to time constraints... so hopefully that makes up for things.

I'll give the movie 6.5/10. Spell effects are pretty good, and the storyline is good (although the book tells is better of course), but loses out because after having read the book... I guess I was expecting it to turn out a certain way.

On a final note, I am the type that can't help but notice the ladies... and it wouldn't be my review if I didn't talk about it! Now hasn't Emma Watson (Hermione) grown up to be quite the stunner? =) Shes got a nice voice too... I'm a bit of a sucker for girls with English Accents, like Mischa Barton. So I will leave you with the Hermione poster for this movie:

News Watch: Addicted or just retarded?

So I came across this rather riduclous article (imo) http://tinyurl.com/l3577x

Apparently World of Warcraft (WoW) is so addictive that its being compared to things like drugs... and as such similar measures like having clinics to stop 'WoW addiction.' How utterly ridiculous is this... there are millions of people playing WoW, does that mean all of them have this addiction? Sure in some cases, people probably do get addicted which causes bizarre things like the case mentioned in the article about a Korean couple who left their baby alone to die, while they went to an internet cafe to play WoW. Its obviously an unfortunate case, but it doesnt mean its going to happen to every couple who plays WoW... which is what I find comparing WoW to drugs is trying to imply. Drugs are naturally addictive... like nicotine as an example. WoW is not like that, otherwise a large portion of this world would be sitting in front of their computers all day leading a self-destructive life of pure WoW.

Yes there are a number of cases where people take the game to the extreme and cause it to destroy their lives. But its not like its some kind of epidemic... I know tonnes of people who play the game, but never to an extreme. These extreme cases are a small minority of gamers. By all means help the stupid people who neglect everything except WoW, but don't go on trying to make it sound like the next plague or something.

On a lighter note, the article mentions a 'disturbing case' of someone who 450 total played days over a 3.5 year period. I wonder what they would think about Stian from Destromath (US). For those who don't know who I'm talking about, he is actually the main person worldwide to make a case about improving the Balance tree and thus getting Blizzard to develop Moonkin druids. However thats not the reason why I mention him... the reason is because after about 1.5 years since classic came out, he posted a screenshot of him hitting 365 played days on his druid alone. It may not have been exactly 1.5 years real time, but we ended up calculating that for him to have reached 365 played days in that time... he would have to have bought the game the day it came out, and played 16-18 hours a day, every day of the week without a break until he posted that screenshot. The funnier thing is... I've never seen him go AFK. He also completed the grind to Grand Marshal (the honor system was very different back then... although he wasnt very good at PVP, just burnt a lot of time doing it) and apparently completed every possible quest in the game and had exalted for every possible faction. Talk about dedication....

Anime Review: Code Geass

Code Geass is probably the best anime I've seen to date in terms of storyline. There are 2 seasons for it, and each episode leaves you hanging like no other. It is a constant stream of plot development, and I appreciated every twist they did in the storyline... although there were a couple that crushed my heart =(

So the basic storyline is... the Empire of Britannia is basically taking over the world, and they just took over Japan, which is known to Britannians as 'area 11' and thus the Japanese are referred to as 'elevens.' The main character is Lelouch, who is a Britannian Prince that is keeping his identity hidden whilst studying at a Britannian school in Japan. He disowned his father, the Emperor of Britannia, after Lelouch discovered that his father murdered his mother while he was a young boy, which caused his little sister to go blind after the ordeal. He lives with his sister and their Japanese maid secretly.

One day, Lelouch encounters a strange woman known as "C C" and they formed a 'contract' which gave Lelouch the power of Geass. When Lelouch uses the Geass, which gives him a power of absolute suggestion, i.e he gives people a command and they will carry it out without question. This power can not be stopped once used upon a person and is irreversible. However the power can only ever be used once per person and he must make eye contact with them.

This is all explained in the first episode in more detail, and the story shows Lelouch's path to revenge.

So basically if you love a good story with interesting twists, mechs and supernatural stuff... you should check this one out. I'd give it a 9/10, only losing a rating because I was quite upset at a couple of the twists! however it does make the story more interesting. I shall leave you with a picture of the sexy CC:

Upcoming Movie: Black Swan

So theres a very interesting movie coming out in 2010 for the guys. Heres some fan-service for you: http://tinyurl.com/mdm9bu

So this quote from the article gives a description of what the movie is about "Portman stars as a veteran dancer who competes with Kunis' character Lilly for the lead in Swan Lake ... but is Lilly real, or is she just a figment of her imagination?"

Now what caught my eye, and obviously the eyes of every other guy in this world is this: "Because in this movie, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have sex. Yeah. You read that right. And not just nice sweet innocent sex either. We’re talking ecstasy-induced hungry aggressive angry sex." This must be every guy's wet dream (well, straight guys anyway). Although there is a clause saying this will happen as long as the movie follows the current script (fingers crossed!).

Although if u put the two together... wouldnt be strange if NP's character was having sex with a figment of her imagination? O_O

News Watch: Prosecutor named to probe CIA interrogations

For reference, the news source is from this article: http://www.smh.com.au/world/prosecutor-named-to-probe-cia-interrogations-20090825-ewsp.html

So media is making a big deal about interrogation methods used by the CIA. Examples that were given were 'threats to rape family members of terror suspects, execute their kids, torture with an electric drill.'

You get the usual complaints like "its inhumane... we are no better than them... etc", however so far it seems like it was just purely threats, rather than things that were actually carried out... or at least as far as I can tell. What I dont get is, if they didn't interrogate him in this way... how were they going to get information out of him? Ask him nicely? =\

I wouldn't condone actually carrying out those kind of threats... since those family members and kids probably aren't involved with the terrorist acts, but if you want information from a criminal... sometimes u just need to make them believe that you would actually carry out a horrific threat. Hes not exactly going to volunteer the information... so if the CIA is going to get anywhere with the investigation... then they will probably need to do what they have to. I think the key is making him 'believe' that the CIA will do anything it has to, rather than the CIA actually doing it. So I guess it probably doesn't help if the CIA cops a lot of flak for this... as it means Khalid probably wont believe the CIA has the guts to carry out their threats due to the bad reputation they would get... and thus hes not gonna talk, and they'll be back to square one.

Don't misunderstand me... all of this killing is plain wrong, whether its by the terrorists or by the Americans... but this case is weighing the suffering of one man (who was responsible for the killing of many) compared to the thousands or millions that would need to suffer because of this. September 11 was enough of a tragedy for me to see in this lifetime.

Movie Review: Dragonball Evolution

So I watched Dragonball Evolution about a week ago... and I must say, if u haven't already seen... stay clear of it, especially if you enjoyed DBZ as a kid.

For starters, Goku is played by a white guy... that is fail already. If u have no idea about the original DB storyline, u'd probably be quite lost watching this movie, cos it barely explains it properly. Not only that... the actual storyline doesnt make sense chronologically. I wont spoil the whole thing (although it wouldnt be a great loss), but I'll explain what the initial storyline was (it explains it in the intro, so its not spoiling anything)... 2000 years ago, an evil namekian warlord named piccolo came to earth and attempted to destroy the earth with his disciple ozaru. Now if you've seen the whole movie, you should understand why this doesnt make sense... if you dont, then well... I guess you can ask me privately and I'll tell you.

Perhaps the only saving grace in my eyes is that it has some reasonable special effects for the fireballs (although its called some kind of wind manipulation bullshit in the movie), and the actresses for Chi Chi and Bulma were pretty attractive. Also the ending theme is pretty good (a bit sad that a song is part of the saving grace of a movie though... lawl)... the song is called Rule by Ayumi Hamasaki if you wanna check it out, I've historically enjoyed her songs.

I would give the movie a 2/10 for effort, and thats quite generous.

Anyway, will hopefully review some better movies soon, both old and new.

OH NOES

Getting suckered into another MMORPG... this time its a game thats coming to Australia later in September called Aion Online.

What draws me to the game is the graphics and character models... sooo much better than WoW! a couple of examples are below:

I wanna play Asmodian (the evil race) cos they have black wings... which is what the above pictures are of... but my friends wanna play Elyos (the 'good' race) QQ.

I havent decided on playing it for sure... I'll probably wait for the others to start playing first and let me know if the gameplay is good. The game is designed to be PvPvE, which means battles between the 2 factions + also NPC monsters as well, which is far more interesting than what WoW offers atm.

Well I guess we'll c what happens in September... WoW took out a big portion of my life over the past 6-7 years that I had played it... hopefully this game won't be the same... I'd be far more happier to just play games casually rather than doing hardcore raids in super guilds again and stuff like that.

Some people never learn...

So behind our office building is kind of a narrow back alley which leads to the various car parks for the office buildings on the block, and where the garbage trucks r meant to go. Thus the whole alley is a no parking zone... but there is always these indian guys from 1 of the offices on our level who keep parking in that alley. Yesterday I saw parking inspectors booking his car and I was loling. Then today, that same car is parked in the exact same spot again! -_- You would think you would stop parking somewhere if you got booked there, since it obviously means that there are inspectors checking that area. What a moron...

News Watch: Why women poach men

So I read an interesting article today which reminded me of this very same topic being discussed on the radio. For reference, the article is: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/why-women-poach-men-20090818-eoib.html

Not only did the women in the study prefer men who they knew were taken, but also listeners who called up the radio show also said they were more attracted to men who were taken.

So basically the general reasoning for this preference is that if a guy is taken and is in a commited relationship... the girls will think 'wow, this other girl has kept him this long, he must be a great catch.' Now I guess I can understand this from a girl's point of view, in that they don't want a guy who sleeps with them, and then buggers off to other pastures... but lets just say a girl is attracted to a guy in a relationship, and then the guy leaves his current gf to be with the other girl.... would that girl really want to get into a relationship with that guy? Seems kind of retarded to me... if a guy would leave their gf to be with another girl, I wouldn't like her chances at having a decent future with him.

So I don't really see the point in trying to poach a taken guy. I don't think its uncommon for girls to complain "all the good men are taken"... this is hardly true. Sure there are probably a lot of jerks out there, but the same can be said from a guy's point of view about girls... I know I certainly have had my fair share of ridiculous girls, as have many of my friends...

So I guess my point is, some girls should probably realise the flaws in some of their ways of thinking...

Anyway thats my rant for the day... maybe more to come later!

Eureka 7

Just finished watching Eureka 7 tonight. Pretty good storyline, but I didnt like how they told the story in such massive blocks at the end, instead of developing it throughout the anime.

Below is a picture of my favourite character Anemone, isnt she cute? but below that cute exterior is a rather insane bitch =)

For people who like trance, this is a good insert song from the anime which is featured in a lot of fight scenes... and probably 1 of the best songs I've heard that has come from an anime. I'm pretty new to blogging so I dunno how to embed a youtube clip... but heres a link to the song if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlocoNadBKs

I'm not sure who I'd recommend this anime to, but if you're into things like mechas, airborne fight scenes and strange fictional scientific plots... this might be the anime for you.

The end of one era, and the beginning of another

Hi everyone. For my first blog post I think I'll talk about WoW, which I have recently quit. I've played wow since the first week it came out many years ago and its been a very big journey for me. I spent a lot of time playing classic, and both expansions... and it was about time I call it quits. I had 2 main reasons for quitting... 1: most of my friends have either quit or were going to quit, and 2. the game had been dumbed down too much since classic and it just wasnt fun anymore.

I've been through a lot, starting off on Destromath alliance and raided with the top guild on alliance side and going through all of the classic content... then switching to Barthilas horde with irl friends, and converting a casual friends guild into a strong raiding guild that went through all of bc content minus sunwell (not really a huge achievement, but we did start raiding quite late)... and then completing ulduar 25 (minus most hard modes and algalon).

Also had a strong pvp scene, in classic, was 1% away from rank 11 (the rank that u got the mount) and then all the ppl I was pvping with at the time had stopped so I didnt end up getting to finish off the grind. Then in BC, I got to 2200 rating in season 3 with warlock + priest combo (i was the priest) but missing out on gladiator rank cos the top spots were filled with wintraders (screw u wintraders!).

Anyways, RIP my characters:

Horde
Yuumi - 80 BE Death Knight
Califa- 80 BE Rogue
Libidinous - 77 Troll Shaman
Lascivious- 70 UD Warrior
Maliciousx - 70 UD Priest
Lumiya - 70 BE Warlock
Skillbloom - 70 Tauren Druid

Alliance
Nymphie - 70 NE Druid
Amber - 60 Human Paladin
Cammy - 60 Human Mage
Elumani - 60 NE Priest


P.S yes I had a lot of characters =\