Alright, first loot post in 2012!
There’s games, books, music and anime both in LD & Blu-ray. Yup, think we have all bases covered this time…
The How to draw Manga-books came from the same Amazon purchase as the collectors edition of REDLINE, since I wanted to reach the amount needed for free shipping. As far as how-to-books goes, they’re neither bad nor great. They feature some interesting inteviews but they don’t teach you any techniques besides “draw more” :p
And as for REDLINE, haven’t watched it yet. I’m thinking of watching it the first time with some friends for maximum effect.

Moving on then, to music! Let’s just get those Sailor Moon CDs out of the way first. One turned out to be some sort of drama cd, but giving it a quick listen, Usagi’s voice is all I can hear. Weird. The full OP & ED is included though so it’s not that bad I suppose. As for the other one, it refuses to play. I’ve tried that disc in, basically, everything that I own that can play a CD and it just doesn’t work. Weirdest thing is, the CD looks pretty good too. No big fingerprints, hardly any scratches…but there seem to be some kind of…something just around the inner area. Maybe that’s it. I’ll need to see if I can clean it somehow.

Aside from Sailor Moon, there’s also two albums from Mariko Nagai, who I discovered late last year through youtube and the anime Yawara!. There’s mostly good early 90′s j-pop in there and some slower songs as well. Good stuff!
Lastly, there’s an album by the group Pink Sapphire. A “tv-sized” version of their song “P.S. I Love You” is played in the main menu of the first Galaxy Fraulein Yuna game, so that’s where I heard it. Sadly, it also has some kind of playback problem during the first track. Wonder what I can do about that…

1st OP for Yawara! The song is “Miracle Girl” by Mariko Nagai

“P.S. I Love You” by Pink Sapphire

On to the games, then. There’s Bomberman ’94 for the PCE (HuCards are totally rad), which needs no introduction since it’s well…Bomberman. Same goes for Daytona USA. Then there’s JetMoto, which I have fond memories of playing the PC-version I borrowed from a friend when I was younger. And finally there’s Racing Lagoon, which is this rather interesting tuning-racer mixed with a healthy dose of RPG-elements (complete with an over world mode and “enemies” that forces you into a quick battle should they hit you with their car), from Squaresoft, of all companies. Now, the character CG models haven’t aged well at all, the driving feels floaty and slightly off but the music is, for the most part so far, bloody fantastic. Oh, and then there’s Noël – Not Digital, because I could. I’m not very good at these kind of games (Noël 3 on the Saturn gave me a bad end, oops!) but I’m strangely attracted to them.

And with that we move on to the last group, the LaserDiscs. Last time there were 5 of them, this time it’s only 4 but all very good. With this I can add Idol Defense Force Hummingbird to the list of completed series, and Bubblegum Crisis, Birdy the Mighty & All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku gets another one each.

Hummingbird is probably the only anime in my LD collection so far, with the possible exception of the Dirty Pair TV-series, that I haven’t watched in any shape, way or form before actually getting it. As a whole, it’s a pretty nice series, but the later two episodes, while trying to build up tension and be all serious-like (well, not really) wasn’t as enjoyable to me as the first two. Specifically, episode two is my favorite by a clear margin. It’s the most consistently animated, having lots of good key frames, introduces two new likeable characters and out of all four LDs is the only CAV one. Which is weird since both episode three & four clocks in about 30 minutes as well. Also, 3 & 4 has a different art direction where the girls doesn’t have the same colorful hair and the drawing style is slightly changed as well. Still, quite enjoyable for what’s it worth. : )

Also, yes, my bedsheets have an elephant-theme going on. You are now jealous.

Until next time.

I’ve got a pretty big loot post coming up, but before that I want to share my experiences with one of those scart to HDMI upscalers in a little mini review of sorts.
If you’re interested in reading more about scalers & gaming, here’s a great site to check out!

You see, the CRT TV I’ve been using for retro gaming & LD watching isn’t actually all that great. It’s a big, chunky 32” widescreen Sony WEGA CRT that 99% percent of the time only gets feed with 4:3 content. It’s got the wrong shape for the job, really. Also, when viewing a 4:3 image on it, it squishes the edges, ever so slightly. Once you notice it, you will see it every time though. It’s especially evident in horizontal scrolling games but also any time a movie or whatever pans horizontally.
One simple solution would be to get another CRT TV, and that is a solution I’ve been thinking of for a while but haven’t been able to go through with. There is two reasons for this:
1) People often don’t specificate what TV it is they’re selling. “Sony CRT” will be the most detailed description you will see. Also, almost never any pictures of the back or information about the inputs available. They will say if it has scart, because scart is important to people here, but s-video? Composite? Component? No. You simply won’t get that from 99,99% of all sellers looking to get rid of their old, fat TVs.

2) They’re big, heavy and generally cumbersome. I can’t lift one myself and in order to get to my room, you have to climb a set of stairs. Not fun with a TV.

So, I’m kind of looking to save space by getting rid of my current CRT and plug everything back into my LCD TV, the proper way this time. I used to just plug things in and it worked all right, didn’t notice much input lag, but with the PCE I got image problems with interlacing and artfacts in some games.
With a scaler, though, you let it take care of the image from your preferred video source and scaling it up to the native (or close to) resolution of your LCD TV.

Problem is a good scaler, like those home cinema ones, are disturbingly expensive. Though, brand name is part of what you pay for and there happen to be tons of Chinese no-name scalers listed on eBay. So, I tried my luck with one of these, a scart one because what isn’t directly connected to my TV goes into my scart boxes.

Behold, the scaler

This isn’t a proper review, to get that out of the way, I didn’t actually play much with it, as I was more focused on how things would look, would it work at all.
The unit itself feels very solid. It’s got a metal casing and certainly weighs a bit. Setting it up couldn’t be any more simple; Scart goes into the scart socket in the back, HDMI cable goes into the HDMI socket on the front. Add power and you’re done. But what’s the end result? Well, here are some pictures I took:

PS1 - RR 4 - PAL scart

PS1 - GitS - NTSC s-video

PCE - NTSC-J composite to scart

Let’s analyse these, shall we? First up was Ridge Racer 4 running on my PAL PS1 through scart. The result is a bit odd. The image has black borders and isn’t centered. Also slightly squished. Ghost in the Shell was running on my NTSC-J PS one through s-video through scart and as you can see, the scaler didn’t like s-video. No color, just black & white. Although in full screen. PCE then? No. Won’t work. Don’t know why. Technically, it’s a NTSC-J composite signal put through one of those Xbox 360 scart connectors, but running it directly into the composite inputs in my scart switches didn’t change the fact that I got no image.

The best result was achieved by my Laser Disc player, which outputs an NTSC composite signal that goes directly into one of the scart boxes. Still stretched to full screen, however.

This highlights the biggest problem, aside from getting a proper image, everything is mercilessly stretched to 16:9. And for some reason, I can’t change the aspect ratio to 4:3 on my TV. Actually none of the two TV sets I’ve tried this on allowed me to change the aspect ratio to 4:3 once the scaler was powered on.
And therefore, it is to me quite useless. Sadly.

As I stated earlier, there are many many many no-name scalers available on eBay (but also Amazon). It might be worth a shot, but don’t be surprised if you get a similar result. : /

Out of all shows that started this season, I only checked out three. I’ve also been following these three since. None is bad enough for me to stop watching but they aren’t exactly the most exciting things I’ve seen either. Though, some are still quite good. Enough of that, let’s give them a rough impression, one by one.

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

(Daily Lives of Highschool Boys)

I thought this was going to become my sleeper hit of the season. It wasn’t something I picked from those anime charts but rather something I seeked out after reading some other blog’s impressions, including ANN’s own winter 2012 coverage. It sounded like every other manga-based slice of life comedy and while I usually don’t mind that kind of thing, I was initially going to pass this one up.
Turns out people was surprised by it though, so I had to check it out and sure enough, episode 1 had me laughing as well. Even though I can’t say it was very original, it was the way it delivered that made it interesting and made it feel fresh. The second episode was just as fun, if not more. But sadly, the latest two episodes haven’t been reaching the same level as those before them, with jokes feeling strangely drawn out, forced or needlessly repeated. I really hope it picks up again though.

Visually, it’s nothing special at all. A quick google search suggests it being true to the source material but it really is a bland looking show. It’s pretty much the opposite of where KyoAni takes some cookie-cutter 4koma and totally maxes that shit out.
One last thing though, it feels good to hear Kyon…sorry, Sugita Tomozaki again, doing what he does best.

Mouretsu Pirates

(Bodacious Space Pirates)

Classical ingredients space, sci-fi & girls are the order of the day in this modern pirating tale. Except there really haven’t been a whole lot of pirating going on so far. And that’s actually a good thing. The main character, Marika, lives a quite ordinary life and it would really feel jarring if they forced her down into the pirate outfit right away. The show manages to be interesting while having quite the laid back pacing and this is probably necessary in order to properly build upon Marika’s character (and everyone else’s) so that the situation hinted in the opening actually makes sense and doesn’t feel forced.

That said, there have been enough happenings every episode to keep things interesting. All negative things I can come up with lies with somewhat lacking, and sometimes quite odd, visual design and presentation. But that’s just what I think. However, the weapons are downright weird. What looks like an oversized sub machine-gun, using a proper magazine for ammo and all, actually acts like a laser cannon – with a ridiculously long charge time before firing (possibly for effect).
Visually, there is too much bland 3D graphics used and while the style is kinda nice, the overall look is still very generic.

But the story is interesting and I want to find out what happens next.

Ano Natsu de Matteru

Waiting in the Summer

This one, I was actually really looking forward to. Not sure since when but probably when I saw the promo art the first time. Then I became even more excited when I read that both the screenplay writer and character designer were involved in 2002′s Onegai Teacher.

This connection is so strong that AnoNatsu proves a bit difficult to judge. On it’s own, it’s a well made albeit sort of slow paced romance comedy, plagued by some less good design decisions – like, for example, the look of the main character :p The graphical style they went for feels a bit more like Ano Hana than Onegai but that’s probably because JC Staff is responsible for the animation. It’s really a good looking show, stylistic preferences aside.
When viewed as a part of the Onegai-series, however, I feel that both the setting and the characters aren’t as interesting, even though they are very much the same, technically. I don’t have easy access to either Onegai Teacher or Twins right now, and this might just be my nostalgia acting up but that’s how I feel about AnoNatsu.

Actually, I think the most magical thing for me with Onegai wasn’t so much the characters (certainly wasn’t Kei) but the location and they way it was presented. Both Onegai & AnoNatsu takes place in rural areas, with both Teacher & Twins using Lake Kizaki in Nagano as their backdrop. I like to think the fact that we get to know this place and it’s surroundings through a total of 26 episodes really helps explain why I don’t harbour the same feelings for the setting in AnoNatsu, even though it seems similar. Still, only 4 episodes in, we haven’t seen that much of it yet. Also, it would certainly not be too surprising should it too be based on another real location somewhere…

But returning to topic, so far, Ano Natsu feels like someone played it safe. It does take certain liberties such as a new (but similar) setting, new (but similar) characters and features a new (but similar) spin on the story from Onegai Teacher. Ultimately, Remon might be the new Ichigo but Ichika is not the new Mizuno ; )

And there we have it. Vague and non-helpful ramblings as per usual : )

I was thinking of writing a few lines about the new anime season but I’m waiting for episode 2 of the shows I’m following, so that’ll have to wait. Instead, I’m going to do a little shoot-out here with two versions of the same game; 銀河お嬢様伝説ユナ (Ginga Ojou-sama Densetsu Yuna) or Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. I’m going to issue a 56k warning here

I don’t have any proof, but quite I’m confident that a great many gamers and anime-fans haven’t heard of this particular title before. And I don’t blame them. With the third and last game released for the PS1 in 1998 and a series of OVAs released around the same time, Kagurazaka Yuna is indeed an icon of times past. There is a compilation of the first two games + sought after spin-off Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire released for the PSP in Japan, 2008, but I’m not really counting that.

With artist Akitaka Mika at the helm, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna is a classic multimedia franchise, including everything you would expect; games, anime, CDs…the lot.
The plot revolves around the cute but somewhat ditzy 16-year old Kagurazaka Yuna, who just happened to win an intergalactic beauty contest (the Ginga Ojou-sama contest – hence the name) and with that suddenly became an idol, with all that entails. However, not only does she receive fame, but also the title of “Saviour of Light” and must do battle with evil forces – in this case, her rivals from said competition, who have had their hearts “stolen by darkness”.
And that’s the gist of it. Sounds corny to you? It is. But I think the game’s straightforwardness works in it’s favour.

The series started out on the PC Engine, with the first game released in 1992. It saw a re-relase (the one I have) with some additional content in 1995 and also a sequel. In 1996 the first game got a re-make on Saturn titled “Remix”. So, you’d imagine that the Saturn version is quite the upgrade from the, by then, 4 year old original version. After all, the Saturn is known as a 2D powerhouse and the large number of high quality adventure, visual novels & digital comics in it’s library certainly speaks in it’s favour.
But you’d be wrong. And in this comparison we will see why. Before we get to the screencaps, let’s compare the opening:

Now, I used Magic Engine (PCE) and SFF (Saturn) respectively in order to grab some screencaps, from the beginning to the first battle with jealous rival Kaede. I used emulation because I’ve got both systems hooked up to a CRT-screen at the moment and we all know how well that goes with photography. Right.

PC Engine-version (1992 – quite small so enlarge them in your browser or something)

Saturn-version (1996)

While the Saturn version features anime-cutscenes in the more modern style the series adapted as it series went on, everything is a mess. Let’s be honest here, the Saturn never had any luck with FMVs (I blame bad codecs) and when they replaced the pixel art cutscenes with the handrawn ones, we’re well on our way to artefact central. Speaking of artefacts, around all character portraits, there’s this almost halo-like pixelation, or what looks like the result of a poor job with the magic wand tool in Photoshop. Not to mention that many character portraits are re-used from the PCE-version, and thus doesn’t match with the newer character design. Other casualties includes the backgrounds, which now looks like they were made in MS Paint – and I’m not joking. The map-screen, which is displayed when you change location in the PCE-version, is absent and so is almost the whole GUI. We’re left with a very bare bones interface with only a semi-transparent blue bar for text and character portraits.

While I appreciate that the game now runs in full screen, it all looks so amateurish. The battle system also gets an “upgrade”. What used to be merely a rock-paper-scissors kind of thing now also has 3 quickly changing stats (attack, shield & evade) which needs to be timed correctly for maximum effect. The idea itself is good but the result is lacklustre. It makes my eyes spin. Also, the grainy FMVs make their comeback during the battle.
In fact, the only thing that can actually be seen as an improvement in the Remix-version is bigger character illustrations and the sound, and even then it’s not a very big difference. Voices sound maybe a little less compressed and the music is no longer chip-generated, but whether that’s a good or bad thing is debatable. This time, it’s a bad thing because no one seemed to care enough about the music to really make it any better. The PCE version actually sounds a bit more distinctive.

If you think I’m hard on Galaxy Fraulein Yuna Remix, it’s because an improved version of a game released on 32-bit system, should not be inferior in almost every single way to the original version, released 4 years prior on what essentially is an 8-bit system. If they just had actually sat down and harnessed the power of the Saturn, it could’ve turned out a great remake.

Now, I do enjoy this particular franchise, and some day I should really pick up the third game for the PS1 or Saturn…and maybe the PC-FX version, should I manage to get my hands on one of those.

Omake content! (Season backdrops from the Saturn version’s calendar mode.)

And that’s that. See you next post!

I did it. I finally got all achievements in Just Cause 2. Having gotten all in the first Just Cause (which was a guilty pleasure of mine) I swore to do the same in the sequel. A task that initially seemed neigh impossible have been completed. The number of games in which I’ve cleared all achievements have now reached the staggering number of…two. That is, JC 1 & JC 2.

…I hate multiplayer achievements.

Earlier today I picked up a package that was in transit during Christmas. You probably know what to expect by now…

No games this time but an Arcade Card DUO for my…well, DUO. Others in the same group is a bgm collection sort of from the All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku OVAs, as well the soundtrack for Bubblegum Crisis episode 4 & 7 (I think I should collect all these, I have them as mp3s but they’re good) and finally yet another installment in the Namco Game Sound Express-series. I wonder if I haven’t gotten all the GALAXIAN 3-related ones now – Namco makes (and made) some good music, after all.

And then some more LaserDiscs. First off, the final two episodes from Aozora Shoujotai (801 T.T.S. Airbats). This marks the second OVA series that I’ve completed, the first one being YUA with only 4 episodes. And that’s one of the nice things with OVAs – they’re pretty “easy” to collect thanks to the small number of episodes.

I threw in episode 8 of BGC in there as well. I’d like to complete that series too but thanks to their age (and/or popularity, perhaps?) they can be a bit tricky to track down. Rakuten had a few more but at the moment I thought I’d just concentrate on my favorite episodes. Couldn’t get my hands on ep. 7, sadly.

Lastly, I picked up two LDs from the old Dirty Pair. I’ve seen a bit of before (mostly the OVAs) but not everything. Wasn’t sure exactly what these LDs would contain – it was hard to dig for info. Now with them in my hands, I can see that both of these (Dirty Pair Masterpiece Compilation +1 & Dirty Pair Complete +1) contains episodes from the 80s TV-series. However, the episodes they contain seem to be a bit random and doesn’t correspond to the order in which they aired. According to wikipedia anyway.

I wonder what the +1 stands for though…hmm.

Not exactly “breaking news” but it’s always fun to see stuff like this mentioned in positive or at least curious light. Usually anime & manga only make it into the papers the bad way, but I digress.

The paper in question is yesterday’s issue of Sydsvenskan (2011-12-27), which comes from the really southern part of Sweden, should my not too impressive geographic skills not be failing me.
I don’t live there, but I work at a library right now and we get a whole bunch of papers every morning.

Sydsvenskan gives Hatsune Miku of Vocaloid fame a two page spread and briefly takes up what Vocaloid is, Crypton Future Media, the rise of Miku’s popularity on Nico Nico and her recent big, spectacular concert(s). And that’s mostly it.

If I had to complain about anything there’s 2 things. 1) Despite the fact that the article covers two pages…there isn’t that much to read. A big illustration on one side and a bit of text on the other.
2) They got her age wrong. I wouldn’t have noticed unless they hadn’t first stated she was 14 on the cover of the culture insert, and then 16 in the actual article – I’m no Miku-fanboy so I’m not exactly upset, just wished they checked the facts before shipping it to print. Makes it feel a bit unprofessional, is all.

My stance on the whole Vocaloid thing? I think the fact that I probably like Akita Neru, a fan character, better than any official one speaks for itself :p

Illustration by artist CHANxCO

Might update this with pictures later, not sure though. Since the camera in my own phone only seems to be there in order to have “camera” listed in the sale specs sheet, I used the one in my work phone – which is better but sucks as well. I mean, it’s a newspaper article, not too exciting :p
Oh well, we’ll see.

Click me!

Copying the description from DA because I’m tired:

I could spend all day pointing out all the mistakes but I won’t. At the time of writing this – about 15 minutes left to the 24th. I MADE IT IN TIME. OHYEAH!

A bit “rough” but consider this- originally “inked” with a black ballpoint pen : s

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays~

The old room layout:

A couple of problems with the old layout was that, while quite comfy, the drum set ate a lot of space and the CRT was both in the way for a door and not exactly useful anywhere. The computers you see there aren’t really in use just…stuffed under there because I didn’t have another place for them (still don’t). My computer was downstairs.

Times like this, it feels like I have too many consoles – but then I remember that no, one can’t have too many consoles.

The new room layout:

It would make sense to have the desk face the wall but I’d rather look out through the window and over the room given a choice. Maybe I’ll change my mind later, we’ll see. My CRT now has a proper use (but it might be replaced in the foreseeable future – I’d rather a 4:3 one) and my game systems are split up between the two TV sets. I also moved up my computer and picked up a second screen, and some other things, quite cheap.

Oh and I moved the bed, got new lightning and another rug.

The room feels a bit more practical now – maybe a bit odd-looking but practical. : )

Oh, and one last thing, I’m working on a picture in time for christmas this year as well but things aren’t looking that hot at the moment. I’ve been busy with both the room and other things and I’m not sure I like what I’m working on…we’ll just have to see what happens.

The really weird thing is, my room, while containing massive amounts of floor space, is actually pretty hard to properly decorate. Two wardrobes/general storage space, a large window and a door has resulted in a lack of good, uninterrupted wall space – every wall is occupied with something.

My work hasn’t been all for naught though, in the process of moving around things I’ve also cleaned out a lot of old stuff that’s basically been hidden in drawers and the like. Say, for example, the Mega Drive-poster in the last post.

My TV and consoles got a bit buried behind some stuff with all this moving around but it’s soon to be dug up again, after all I haven’t finished my hard-difficulty playthrough of MML yet, along with a whole bunch of Saturn & PCE games…