One of my favorite games of the past was Jet Set Radio. Debuting on the Sega Dreamcast, the game was about a small gang of Japanese teens that used motorized skates and graffiti to challenge a corrupt corporation on the streets of Japan. You can see a small trailer of it here. Jet Set Radio even holds up today, despite it being close to ten years old.
I now have this game on my phone.
No, seriously, Sega released a direct port of it, 3-D and all, for android phones. A game that I cheerfully spent $50 for is now $5, and I have it along with my other favorite DC game, Chu Chu Rocket . A phone can now run the most graphically demanding games of ten years ago. Amazing.
Rooster Teeth, the guys behind the hit series RvB, are making another new series. This one is called RWBY, and the trailer is below. Warning, some violence.
What’s interesting about this is the engine they are using to make it. Red Vs Blue was famous for being Machinima-a type of animation that uses preexisting models to tell different stories. RvB used the Halo engine, and this uses MMD. Miku Miku Dance is a freeware program which uses models of Crypton’s Vocaloids. It’s used often to make music videos for them, but it’s increasingly being used for other stories too.
I’m wondering if this is another mainstream moment for the Vocaloids, similar to Toyota’s ads featuring Miku Hatsune, or the big 3-D concert they had a while back. It’s amazing how worldwide in scope culture is these days.
From Comics alliance, Soul of Chogokin is releasing an awesome toy: robot versions of popular Disney characters that combine into a giant robot. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto rendered in mecha form. The detail on the figures is amazing, and even Pluto’s doghouse and the steamboat from Steamboat Willie are part of the final fusion.
I’m seriously tempted to import it. It’s only nine inches high though, and will set you back a pricey $179 and up. But wow, what awesomeness.
Here’s some of the cool things I’m reading/listening/watching on the web as of October 24th.
For music, I’m listening to Toles and Pebbles from the Vanguard Princess soundtrack. Vanguard princess is a doujin fighting game-a fan made one-and it rivals many professional ones in graphics and content. Unfortunately it’s PC only, and I’m not the best fighting gamer these days. But the soundtrack itself is excellent, and Toles and Pebbles is one of the best tracks on it.
I’m also watching Guilty Crown. GC is an anime series about a young man who gets caught up in a revolution versus a corrupt government, and through an accident is given the powers of a Void. He can reach into the hearts of people, and bring forth weapons of awesome power to wield against others. It has some serious star power, with Production I.G. behind the visuals, and the awesome band Supercell behind the music. You can see it on Hulu here, and it’s nice to have a high-concept anime rather than the constant moe and harem comedies that seem to dominate the listings.
Reading has been slow. I’ve recently read Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha-cha-cha, and while I liked the storytelling, the constant cameos distracted me enough from it to only give it a like. I’m currently reading Theodore Beale’s Eternal Warriors: War in Heaven, but it’s not starting out well at all. To top it off, my Kindle has just given up the ghost after a year of faithful service. I still have the Fire and my phone, but I’ll probably read for research and some manga for pleasure, like A Certain Scientific Railgun.
Today is the DVD and Blu-Ray release date. Being the big geeks we are, my coworker and I managed to bring it in to our store for viewing. Unfortunately around here, you need to drive a half-hour to get to a decent theater, so casual movie going is not something I do. So I watched it for the first time.
I liked it. It’s beautiful in 1080 high-definition. Colors pop out at you and details are so crisp that it’s like wearing glasses. There was plenty of fan service for comic book geeks with fights in between the various Avengers: Thor/Hulk, Iron Man/Thor, etc. Iron Man stole the show, of course, as the others felt a little dry or wooden.
The villains really didn’t command much of a presence. The alien big baddies were nondescript, and probably would have been better if they were Ultron clones or something. They felt a little too much like the Covenant from Halo. Loki was melodramatic. The fights were spectacular though. The geek in me likes how they took the Ultimates character design, but left the transgressive elements behind (like Thor being a hippie who we didn’t know was a real god or not, the Hulk eating people, Giant Man abusing his wife, etc…)
The post-credits teaser was…interesting. That particular villain belongs more to the cosmic wing of Marvel, and has a lot of history which they are going to have to completely ignore just to film him. The problem with the Avengers is that they really lack iconic villains compared to the X-men or the Fantastic Four, and while I can see why they would borrow him, they are going to have a tougher time adapting him, especially if they go the Infinity Gauntlet route.
The actors fit the heroes well. I’m not sure I like the Ultimate-style Hawkeye, as without more focus on his violence he seemed just there, even if he was badass in action. The Bruce Banner character seemed a little too buff and self-possessed for my tastes, but everyone else was cool.
I enjoyed it. Of course, the inner geek always suggests things I’d like to see. I have a weakness for both Ant-Man and the Wasp before they decided domestic abuse was a fine way to ruin Hank Pym’s character. Same with the Scarlet Witch and Vision. I guess they had to do the Ultimates version, but I kind of wish we could see some of the classic Avengers, even the dorky ones like Black Knight. The curse of making a film based on a comic with a rotating team of heroes that spans 30 years means no one is satisfied though.
Now I just have to watch the Spiderman reboot and the Hunger Games, and I’m good for mainstream Geek blockbusters for a bit.
Discussion on the Speculative Faith Blog is centering around the new Peter Jackson Hobbit film. I brought up Rankin-Bass’s version of it, and that reminded me of their other big fantasy film-The Last Unicorn.
It’s based on the novel by Peter Beagle, who wrote the script. The Japanese animators who worked on this film actually became part of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli later on, and they worked on the wonderful classic Nausicca in the Valley of the Wind. The voices are A-list: Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, and Christopher Lee (!)
The story is about the Last Unicorn, who one day wanders out of her protected, holy meadow to find what happened to the rest of her kind. She is captured by an evil sideshow act, and freed by the clownish magician Schmendrick. She learns of a dark king who has captured all of her kind, and goes to confront him.
But the king, and his servant, a massive fiery bull, are too much for her. In desperation, Schmendrick surrenders to the will of the magic, and casts a spell.
He changes the Last Unicorn into a mortal woman.
Now virtual prisoners in King Haggard’s crumbling ruin of a castle, they must find a way to defeat the fiery bull. But time is running out. For with each day the Lady Amalthea becomes more and more human, and soon we will have no more free unicorns in the world.
The film has its bad points. Beagle was too fond of anachronisms, and sometimes they jar if you recognize them. Mia Farrow and Jeff Bridges cannot sing to save their lives. But there’s a mournful, haunting beauty to it unusual in a children’s film, straight down to the title track sung by the band America. It’s very much a story about the magic going away in life, and the emptiness of one man managing to destroy so much.
And oh, the scenes. A breathtaking one is when we find out what King Haggard has done to the unicorns the red bull captures. The bull drives them into the sea, and then the characters look out at these massive waves full of unicorns that are just floating on the whitecaps, locked in a sea of oblivion they cannot escape. It’s an unearthly scene impossible to do in any other medium. The animation is breathtaking in general, too. When CGI movies and series like reboot and the original Toy Story start to look more dated as time goes by, this looks even more impressive at DVD quality. Let alone Blu-ray.
But some of the scenes are amazing. Mammy Fortuna, shouting to the sky at the Harpy she forced to do her bidding in her show. “You’ll remember me! No matter how long you live you’ll remember I caged you!” Haggard in his dead castle, or the beautiful valley the unicorn lives in, one that never stops being green. So many lovely moments.
I don’t know if it’s intentional either, but there’s some very, very subtle Christian symbolism in the film. “Magic, do as you will!” Schmendrick cries out when everything else is lost. But it’s not a spell, and then he is not the conjuror he wishes to be: he is praying, and a vessel. A prophet, a miracle-worker. And the only unicorn that can defeat the red bull, and drive him into the sea instead? One who has become human, and unicorn both. It’s not a perfect analogy, but faith and the loss of it are a part of the story.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to buy the blu-ray and ebook again.
Back to the Books in Colorado is a bookstore that only sells self-published or Indie books. It’s a tiny little downtown location, but you’d have to admit, it must feel a lot nicer than trawling the lists at Lulu or Amazon. One of the downsides of the modern era of internet bookselling is that there is no serendipity, and browsing is very hard even with the best algorithm possible. A well stocked physical bookstore really does have its charms.
However that same bookstore due to its increased costs has every incentive to be conservative in its selections. I stopped visiting the local Books-A-Million frequently because of that. Too many remainders and “safe” books, while very few newer or niche ones.While I can relax and browse, what I can browse from is too heavily curated to do me any good.
And if you have seen my Goodreads list, you know I am all about eclectic books. It would be great if somehow a chain could arise that could combine both aspects. The eclectic nature and selection of self-published books and Amazon, and the physical browsing and experience of a chain store. This is one nice step in the right direction, and I wish them the best of luck.
