I’m going to be away for a few days, so there won’t be any updates until Sunday night at the earliest. Finals are coming up soon, which is why I’ve been really slow with everything recently. Thankfully once the semester ends I’ll have a lot more free time to write more and start up a set schedule for updating, until then, thanks for everyone who’s been reading and putting up with my slowness ^_^.
For now, I leave you with a picture of a Velociraptor in Twilight.
I hate Twilight with a passion, but Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all time. So combing the two, and seeing a Velociraptor eat those sparkly vampire wanna-be’s would be an amazing film.
No offense to anyone who likes Twilight, I just hate it….unless it had Velociraptors.
Evangelion is easily my #1 favorite anime series out there, and the Evangelion 1.0 movie is finally coming out in the states on Tuesday on DVD. Funimation announced they had acquired the rights to the movie back on New Years eve of last year, and now, almost a year later, it’s finally coming out on DVD. Eva 1.0 is nothing short of amazing. It recaps the first 6 episodes of Evangelion and changes the story a little bit, so it doesn’t feel stale watching it.
I saw a screening of the dub at Otakon this year, and the dub is phenomenal. Shinji and Misato’s voice actors came back for the movie, but Rei had to be replaced, which was the one thing I was worried about. Thankfully though, Brina Palencia (Ai Enma in Hell Girl) did an amazing job as Rei; Allison Keith and Spike Spencer also did a phenomenal job as Misato and Shinji, as expected. Everyone else did a great job, I had no problems with the dub whatsoever. I can’t wait until Tuesday to get the DVD and spend some relaxing time watching Shinji’s horrible life unfold, until then, here’s the first 8 minutes of the movie posted by Funimation -
Episode 17 starts off on a really sad note….seriously, seeing Beato all depressed like that is depressing, even though she is/was a psycho witch. But anyway, this episode begins briefly with the remaining family members mourning the death of Hideyoshi, Kyrie and Rudolf in the mansion. Afterward, in the witch tea party tower…thing….Battler still doesn’t acknowledge Beato as his opponent, saying she isn’t even a witch, ouch. Beato says that she’ll try to become a witch who’s able to be Battler’s opponent. Alright, stopping for a sec. Beato, the psycho witch, is depressed because Battler, whos family she’s killed over and over again, won’t acknowledge her as his opponent? That’s…interesting. Beato has a complicated mind, it’ll be cool to see how this continues on….
So first up on Beato’s agenda, help George by bringing Shannon back to life. Wow, that really is being nice. But before we find out what happens with that, Eva-Beatrice shows up in Eva’s head, for one final discussion about what’s been going on. Eva’s pissed that Eva-Beatrice lied to her and killed Hideyoshi. Eva-Beatrice said it’s her fault for picking a loud and obnoxious husband, making it clear that there is no more “we” with Eva and Eva-Beatrice. They have an argument about whose dream it was to become the head of the Ushiromiya family, with Eva saying that she also had dreams about being a wife and a mother, and Eva-Beatrice saying that those dreams were after she became an adult so they weren’t her dreams. Eva-Beatrice says she’ll never show up before Eva again, and leaves. After Eva wakes up, she goes back to her room because she’s not feeling well again, leaving Krauss and Natsuhi alone. Yah, they don’t last long.
Now back with Beato and George….Yay, Shannon’s back!
Wait….
O_O no…
Wow, dick move Eva-Beatrice….dick move.
Thankfully Beato leaves looking really pissed, hopefully to go do some epic witch battles soon. But before anything like that happens, Eva, Battler, Jessica and Nanjo find Natsuhi and Krauss body’s, which makes Eva run to find George with Battler. Eva breaks down seeing George dead, while Battler reflects to himself. This is where we find out Battler has a little sister, named Ange, who he needs to make it back alive for.
Jessica and Nanjo come storming into the room, Jessica screaming that Eva is the only one who could have killed everyone. This leads to Jessica almost being shot in the face after a quick “scuffle” with Eva. Almost being the key word here, she’s still blinded though. Kinda sucks, being almost shot in the face by your aunt and blinded right after seeing the bodies of your dead parents. Nanjo brings Jessica to the other room, and Jessica tells him to go save Battler after wrapping her face up. Yah, Nanjo doesn’t get far and gets killed by Eva-Beatrice right outside the door.
Jessica, alone and scared, cries out for anyone to save her, specifically calling out for Kanon. Back in the witch tea party room, Beatrice says she needs to use magic to make people happy, and make Battler acknowledge her as a witch. Saying goodbye to Ronove, she goes to save Jessica, thus ending the episode.
At the end of the first season of Eden of the East, they announced that the story would continue with a movie, which they finally released a short trailer for. The movie, Eden of the East – The King of Eden is coming out in Japan on November 28th. If anyone is lucky enough to be in Japan during that time, I’d definitely suggest to go see it since the anime was so good. I can’t wait til it comes out on DVD so I can get it and watch it, it’s something I’m really looking forward to along with Evangelion 2.0. The trailer also mentions another movie coming out, Eden of the East – Paradise Lost on January 9th. I wish anime movies could come out in the states simultaneously as they do in Japan…
Here’s the trailer to hold you over until they come out -
With episode 16 of Umineko, the game continues, but the mood of the game has turned even more intense than before. Since Eva-Beatrice was so brutal in Maria and Rosa’s deaths, and Beato just laughed the whole time, seemingly enjoying it, Battler refuses to acknowledge her as his opponent. Telling Beato to get out of his sight, Beato leaves Ronove to represent her in the game.
Back on the game board, Eva-Beatrice shows up to talk to Eva and tell her she’s the one who killed Rosa and Maria, so now only her and Eva know about the gold. Eva tries to talk Eva-Beatrice down from following through with the witch’s Epitaph, but the power-hungry psycho Eva-Beatrice refuses, but tells Eva she won’t kill her family, yay for a psycho witch’s promises!
After Eva starts feeling sick again and goes to her room, Kyrie and Rudolf bring up the fact that they’re running out of food, and that they should go over to the mansion to get some so the children don’t starve. With Hideyoshi going with them, and both Kyrie and Rudolf having guns, they figure they’ll manage to make it back.
Eva-Beatrice shows up almost immediately after they enter the mansion and summons Leviathan and Belphegor to go after Kyrie and Rudolf, telling them to not go after Hideyoshi. They tell Eva-Beatrice that Beato told them not to do anything to vicious to them, but will still have some fun. Once they appear in front of them, Hideyoshi, Rudolf and Kyrie each run in opposite directions, with Belphegor following Rudolf and Leviathan following Kyrie.
When I was watching the episode, I just assumed that the 2 sisters would make quick work of Rudolf and Kyrie, but after an awesome chase and little battle, they both manage to “kill” Leviathan and Belphegor, leaving only Eva-Beatrice in front of them. This is when Eva-Beatrice summons 2 new pieces of furniture, the bunny girls, Siesta 45 and Siesta 410, the Siesta Sisters.
The two new super furniture make a ridiculous arrow type thing, and brutally kill Kyrie and Rudolf, leaving only Hideyoshi who runs up to Eva-Beatrice while she’s in the middle of throwing their corpses around. Hideyoshi slaps Eva-Beatrice and tries to talk some sense into her (while bopping her on the head, it rules).
For a few minutes it seems that Eva-Beatrice is actually listening to him, but that quickly ends when she kills Hideyoshi, breaking her promise to Eva. The remaining family members find the corpses of Rudolf, Hideyoshi and Kyrie, then the scene changes to the tea-party room. Battler makes his usual arguments with Ronove, but Ronove and Virgilia both ask Battler to accept Beato as his opponent. Battler refuses, but Ronove and Virgilia both leave him to think about it.
To end off the episode, it actually seems like Beatrice is depressed, and wants Battler to accept her. Virgilia talks to her, and gives her some advice on how to get Battler to accept her. Thus ends Episode 16 of Umineko. Another great episode for an anime that keeps getting better, next episode will be up soon even though I’m far behind on the reviews! ^_^
I don’t know how many of you are gamers, but the new Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City came out yesterday. Earlier in the week though, Rockstar released a video teaser for it for an in-game tv series you can watch, called Princess Robot Bubblegum.
I hope this is a full anime series in the game because it looks ridiculous and hysterical. I wasn’t planning on picking up GTA: Episodes from Liberty City, but I might just for this, or at least give it a rent.
If Genshiken had a baby with Lucky Star and Haruhi then this is what would happen….I know, horrible mental image, but it’s the best way to sum it up.
Seitokai no Ichizon (Translated in english to “It’s Student Council’s Judgement”) is a fun, parody driven series that follows the exploits of the student council of Hekiyou Gakuen High School, who were chosen by a popular vote, which would explain there only being 1 guy, Ken Sugisaki, on the council, and the rest girls. The reason why Sugisaki is in the council is because he’s the valedictorian and was put in because of his high test scores. Sugisaki’s main goal of being in the student council? To create his dream harem. The other characters are the president, Kurimu Sakurano, who is the extremely kiddy looking one who likes cookies, Minatsu Shiina who loves Shonen series’, Mafuyu Shiina whose life force is video games and writes video game walk-throughs, and Chizuru Akaba….the scary, dominatrix one.
The council members left to right - Minatsu Shiina, Ken Sugisaki, Kurimu Sakurano, Chizuru Akaba and Mafuyu Shiina
So, like I said, the anime is filled with parodies and references to other anime. Before the opening even began, there was mentions of Kuroshitsuji and D-Gray Man. The first episode seems to pull together the parodies as though it is just a bunch of anime fans being themselves, and doesn’t seem forced at all. My favorite scene in the first episode had to be this one, which thankfully I found a YouTube clip for.
That’s a parody of Higurashi, a mention of Umineko, a parody of another series I can’t remember, and a parody of Haruhi. All within 45 seconds, and it actually flowed pretty cool. Now, before I go on about anything else about the review, I need to rant. The only problem I’ve had so far with the series is the moe factor of the president of the council, Kurimu Sakurano. The girl looks like she’s way, way, way, way to young to be in highschool. Of course, with the fad being moe this, moe that, in a lot of new anime out there, apparently a lot of people really like it. To me, it’s ok in small doses, or if it’s done really well (Lucky Star) to the point of not feeling like a creeper because of it, but sometimes it gets way to out of hand. Seitokai no Ichizon doesn’t bombard you with moe, but it is there. This is just my one pet peeve, but it does have jokes played off of it, so the anime isn’t ignoring the fact that she’s disfigured for a girl her age.
Now onto the episode itself. It starts off with the characters basically discussing that their series is now an anime, and what to do about it. It’s pretty funny how they randomly discuss it before the opening even begins. The first half of the episode is pretty much used to introduce the main characters, and show off some of their quirks.
Basically the student council is told to actually *gasp* work! Having to go through material for all of the clubs in the school, they all rush frantically to find the right material for each club and approve it (One even being a voodoo doll and stake for one of the clubs, wtf. Thankfully that one was denied….). Of course, they each have bursts of A.D.D. from time to time. The best had to be when Minatsu and Chizuru were trying on cosplay outfits (btw – there’s apparently a tiny apartment next to the council room hidden behind a wall, yahh….) during which Sugisaki stumbles into it, the reactions are great. Toward the end of the episode, it shows that Sugisaki actually wants to work for the council. After seeing everyone get tired from working so hard, he pretends to get all the work from the other clubs together so that Kurimu can just stamp one thing to make it done, but it turns out he decided to stay after school to finish things for everyone, so he isn’t really just a walking ero-game lover.
All in all, it’s a really funny series. There were a few times when I literally lol’d, and I’m excited whenever a new episode comes out. Definitely sticking with this one, ’til next time!
Yah, they did an ending pose...gotta put each one up for each episode....
Wow…now that is a $&@# ton of gold, and it’s all Eva’s. She managed to solve the riddle of the epitaph and find the gold, thus making her the new head to the Ushiromiya family. Rosa came in a minute later right behind her, saying that she also solved the riddle to the epitaph. So now there are two crazy women in one small room with guns who both want the gold, anyone would think this would end with a ton of bloodshed, but thankfully they don’t go gun crazy and agree to split the gold. That plan isn’t enough for the mini Eva, so the little psycho-inside-a-psycho stays behind, literally jumping on the gold and smothering it until Beatrice shows up.
I really wish Beatrice just slapped her off of the gold, seriously, she’s raping the innocent gold. Sadly, that wasn’t the case and Beatrice decided to give Eva the title of Beatrice and The Golden Witch, which was done during a “ceremony” and transformed Eva into Eva-Beatrice, the new Golden Witch.
After this “ceremony”, Battler shows up with Beato and co. with Battler being extremely confused about this random ceremony to make Eva the new Beatrice. After some explaining, turns out the “ceremony” is just for show, but Beato did give up the name Beatrice and The Golden Witch to Eva, so she now needs a new name and asks Battler to give her one. Battler brushes her off and just sticks with calling her Beato, which makes her sad in an adorable way…it’s actually quite horrifying. Anyway, Ronove tells Battler that the best way to think of the new Eva-Beatrice is to think of her as a being inside of Eva. Of course Battler doesn’t want to accept it, but Virgilia tells him it’s best to accept that explanation for the time being.
Back at the mansion, the rest of the family is still sitting around doing nothing. When Eva and Rosa get back, Eva becomes ill and goes to her room to rest. While she’s up there, Maria is worried about her rose outside. After a quick beating from Rosa (Seriously, what a psycho) and a reasonable request from Eva to keep it down, Rosa takes Maria outside to check on the rose. In the garden, Eva-Beatrice shows up telling Rosa there’s no way she’d split the gold with her, and thus begins a childish and twisted torture game on Maria and Rosa for the sacrifice. Since Eva-Beatrice can revive Rosa and Maria after each death, the kills go on for a while. After seeing his cousin and aunt get flown up into the sky and smashed down onto the ground, having a huge cake fall on them, and being drowned in jelly, Battler gets pissed at Beato for laughing at what Eva-Beatrice is doing. Beato, thinking it’s all fun and games, keeps going until Battler slaps her. Finally, Battler slaps the Golden Witch. He then tells her he thought she was fun sometimes, but he’ll never make that same mistake again and *poofs* away.
This made me lol hard, had to re-watch it to get the laughs out.
Beato actually seems upset. Not angry upset, but embarrassed upset. Asking Ronove and Virgilia for advice, and not really getting any, she goes down with Eva-Beatrice to tell her to stop with the torture and let Beato show her how to kill “elegantly.” Thankfully this is much less brutal on Maria, who cries because Beato lied to her about taking her to the Golden Land. Maria gets off with just being choked, but Rosa gets thrown into the air and slammed down on a fence (she totally deserved it, stupid child beating psycho lady). With the two sacrifices for the night done, Beato summons the Seven Sisters and Ronove, telling them to carry out the rest of the sacrifices more elegantly. Eva-Beatrice doesn’t want to go along with it, but does just out of respect for Beato.
Thus ends the episode. Episode 16’s been out for a while, so I’ll work on the review for that shortly. Sorry it’s taking a long time in-between posts, school/work has been really troublesome recently, but I’m not going to end the blog anytime soon and want to keep it going. As always, thanks for reading!
This episode begins with quite possibly the best beginning scene of Umineko thus far; an Epic Magical Duel of Witches which rivals that of Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort. But before getting neck deep in epic witch duels, let me back up a few seconds to go over who Chiyo really was (Which was revealed during the very end of the last episode.)
The former Beatrice (Virgilia)
Turns out Chiyo was The Former Beatrice (I’m just going to refer to her as Virgilia for now, you’ll know why later in the review) and the current Beatrice’s teacher. Virgilia tells Beatrice that the endless power shouldn’t be used to cause trouble for people, so of course Beatrice doesn’t like this. Cue Beatrice summoning epic towers to do battle with Virgilia, which ends in a crazy magical reversal move! Virgilia attacks Beatrice with spears of God, which seemingly hit her but it turns out Beatrice was just playing dead, and in reality Virgillia had spears in her back long before she even hit Beatrice. She was just being a jerk and playing with Virgilia.
Ouch.
The rest of the family find the dead servants one by one, traveling from room to room with each master-key they find on each of the dead servants who have each been put into a closed room murder. Once they find the last servant, Shannon, Battler makes his appearance. Down trotted and once again feeling defeated because his main argument was proved invalid, Battler sulks in the flower garden. While there, Virgilia appears offering help to Battler, giving him a technique that will aid him in his battle against Beatrice. This is where Virgilia decides on her own name, since she didn’t have one (which is probably due to the current Beatrice stealing her name).
Having regained his will to fight once again, Battler and Virgilia return to the tea-time circle room thing (have no idea what to call it) to confront Beatrice and Ronove.
Battler reveals his new technique – the ability to say that something that happened, hasn’t happened because there is no proof behind it. Since Beatrice can’t prove that a battle between her and Virgilia happened, Battler doesn’t believe it ever happened, thus creating two truths to the situation. Ronove refers to this technique as being the power of a Finite Witch. The back and forth argument between Beatrice and Battler resumes, only this time Battler is the one who pushes Beatrice into the corner when telling her to say “None of the 6 servants were killed by other people.” Beatrice refuses, trying to trick Battler by saying “None of the 6 servants committed suicide.” Battler’s almost an idiot and believes her, but Virgilia is there to back him up. Beatrice and Ronove then retreat after Ronove shuts Beatrices mouth before she said her “Treasured red Sword.”. I’m going to guess this was very important, which is why Ronove covered her mouth.
To end off the episode, Eva is shown trying to figure out the riddle of the epitaph to find the way to the Golden Land. With her little mini ghost her helping her out, she finally figures it out. Will she find the Golden Land, and be saved from the ceremony? Or will she fail miserably and get stabbed in the face again by one of the Sisters of Purgatory? Watch the episode and see for yourself, the ending is a shocker that will leave you breathless! Or is it? Who knows!
Another new week, another new episode of Umineko. Although this one really came out last week….oh well, 6 days late isn’t all that bad. ^_^
The episode starts off right where the last one had ended, with Rosa giving a flashback about how she “killed” Beatrice. The flashback shows how Kinzo had kept Beatrice locked away on a mansion deep in the forest of the island. Told to never leave because of the wolves outside of the mansion gates, Beatrice has never left the spot. Rosa finds her way to her mansion after mindlessly running through the forest after an argument at home. There she meets Beatrice for the first time. Beatrice is actually innocent and kinda cute, no murdering crazy laughing witch today, yet. Rosa and Beatrice have tea, and Rosa decides to let Beatrice out of the mansion for a bit, taking her for a walk on a nearby cliff ledge near the ocean. Yah, a ledge near the ocean with a bunch of sharp, jagged rocks down at the bottom. So much safer then the fake wolves in the forest, good job Rosa!
So we then find out how Rosa “killed” Beatrice. She simply slipped off a cliff ledge onto a pile of jagged rocks being grisly torn apart. Again, brilliant idea Rosa, because you just let Beatrice, evil psycho witch lady version, out of her fake body! Apparently Kinzo had sealed Beatrice into a normal body, sealing away her magic powers. After her death she appears in ghost-magic mode (I like to call it that) and figures out she’s finally free. Battler, Beatrice and Ronove then appear, which gives Beatrice a chance to shatter Battlers main idea on how the murders really occurred, with a “19th” person on the island.
After pulling out her trump card, Battler is stuck trying to figure out his next move. While he’s busy doing that, Kinzo summons all of the servants to his room. Beatrice had decided to begin the ceremony that night, with Kinzo being the first victim. Beatrice also wanted to kill off a few of the servants to finish off the first night of the ceremony. Kanon refuses, so Beatrice makes a deal with him. If Kanon can defeat Beatrice’s Seven Sisters of Purgatory, she will let him choose which two will be the 2nd and 3rd sacrifices of the evening. Kanon makes quick work of the first sister to appear, Lucifer of Pride. Kanon sadly though that beating one would be sufficient, but he would have to beat all seven in order to win the bet. Kanon fails against the combined power of all seven sisters, and him and Shannon, along with Genji are killed. The seven sisters are then to kill the rest of the servants.
Lucifer is really, really pissed about losing.
The seven sisters corner the last servant – The old lady Chiyo. Once Beatrice appears to stop the seven sisters, there’s an interesting turn of events. I’ll let you watch the episode to see it, but it was a shocker for me. Thus ends the review for episode 13, looking forward to the next one as usual, which will be up on time this weekend since there’s no convention, so look forward to it!
