An Introduction: A Wild Author Appears!

If you been following this site for a while, you may have noticed that someone new has made his first post. My name is HelghastKillzone and I’ll be the newest writing member of the Star Crossed Anime Blog. Before I go into the finer details, here is a little history on what anime means to me.

normal_psp_screen_1

Just like any typical person growing up in the 90s, anime in my childhood consisted of rushing home on weekdays from elementary school to watch Sailormoon, Pokémon, Gundam Wing and whatever Fox Kids or YTV  decided to throw in on Saturday mornings including the short-lived Escaflowne. Over the years, I picked up series here and there, from Hellsing to Evangelion to 5cm per Second but I never followed anything week to week until the Fall 2013 season. My actual blogging career started that year in the spring with MeepingAnime.com (now known as azureminds.com), ProjectOtaku.com (now defunct) and finally, SeaSlugAnime. I have covered such shows as Chaika, Captain Earth, Aldnoah.Zero, Zankyou no Terror, Psycho-Pass 2, Seraph of the End, Unlimited Blade Works and ERASED on an episodic basis as well as having written up on older shows, movies, seasonal preview and the low-hanging fruit of top ten lists.

cover

My tastes tend to lend towards the more mature and darker end of anime but I’m not closed off to indulging myself in the more lighter, moeblob, ecchii side of this wonderful animated medium. I will admit that there are large gaps in my viewing experience like the staples of Cowboy Bebop, Stein;Gate and Ghost in the Shell. It’s on my to watch list but I have a hard enough time in keeping up the latest and greatest but I would still love to hear your suggestions on what I should watch next. If you trouble grasping on what I would enjoy, my online alias and accompanying display picture is a perfect example of what exactly you’d expect from me. HelghastKillzone is from the Sony’s FPS franchise of Killzone for which I love the gunplay, visuals and aesthetics but the story is something left to be desired. The display picture, though, isn’t from the video game but instead, taken from the movie of Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, which is one of the very few anime I have awarded 10/10. If you are still unsure what where I stand, I suppose writing up a top ten anime show article for myself would do the trick.

Jin-Roh-The_Wolf-Brigade-wallpaper

As for my personal life, I live in Vancouver, Canada in the North America unlike the my other European contributors on this site. I hold a political science degree with some other lesser diplomas and certificate to go along with it. I do find it a little sad and ironic that my best phase of writing came after I received my bachelor degree where it was all about analyzing perspectives and pumping out papers. As for my working life, I’m actually a serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces for the last eight years and is looking to further my career within governmental agencies  In my spare time, I play extensively in this little-known MMOFPS game call Planetside 2 under the same name. If you have heard of this peculiar game then I suggest you hit up the Connery server for some sexy times.

For the spring season of 2016, I will be covering Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Unfortunately, due to a work-related trip, I won’t be able to do episode three piece until this Monday.

Calling it now. Anime of the Season.

LINKS

Go on and say bad things on my MAL Profile:

http://myanimelist.net/animelist/HelghastKillzone

Previous Articles:

http://www.seaslugteam.com/author/helghastkillzone/

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 03

We reach the end of the first arc and our villainess is defeated but many questions left unanswered. I am glad that she didn’t happen to perish in our Knights Excalibah! attack as she plays a fantastic femme fatale. Her fighting style resembles that of Rider of Fate/stay night and when she climbed on the walls she almost looked like a possessed corpse. She’s a genuinely intimidating figure and the fact that her nickname is “The bowel hunter” makes her all the more scary. For our protagonist to make an enemy of someone whose primary interest is ripping out people’s intestines is a worrisome matter indeed.  Not to mention she such a beast that to dodge an attack when one of her feet is frozen to the ground she rips the flesh off her foot and freezes it with a crystal so she can continue fighting. That’s some incredible pain resistance. What we have here is an episode which was entirely set in a room with a massive fight scene. It wasn’t the highest quality fight scene I have seen but damn if it wasn’t pretty damn good. It’s nice that anime nowadays can have people fighting while talking instead of tense facial expressions to the sound of sword clangs. In particular the 360 shot looks to me like someone was taking lessons from One Punch Man. Well played White Fox. I would take some well done Sakuga over still frames and yelling any day. What is most surprising is that Subaru isn’t the star of the show here and instead the Knight who was featured last episode showed up to defeat Elsa. While Subaru’s actions did affect the outcome, it is surprising that he wasn’t the one to defeat her. It’s almost taboo for the villain of the arc to be defeated by someone other than the main protagonist.

He didn’t exactly sit back and do nothing however and his skills at fighting are getting a little ridiculous. I mean he was swinging around that massive club with one hand with very little effort. My suspension of disbelief has limits. That delayed cut at the end was also rather cartoonish as they realized that Subaru was actually cut and the damage only showed up two minutes later. Still how it was shown was rather clever. At first it appears his clothes were only cut which makes it comical but then comes the bleeding from his stomach. I doubt this means another rewind for Subaru as this does feel like the end of an arc. Reinharts reaction to Felt pulling out that emblem was also rather intriguing. By my best guess I would say that the medal stole had some charm that made it could only be held by royalty which is why Reinhart started questioning her about her family. There’s also the matter of Sattella whose real name is Emilia. Upon being introduced to Felt and Rom he remarks about her being a half elf. Then Felt panics because a Half elf with white hair is apparently related to something. Even Emilia remarks that she has no relation to that something. My guess is that this has to do with the name Emilia gave Subaru before which appears to refer to a being called the “jealous witch”. I am still loving this show so far and the wait between episodes is really killing me. It’s true that Subaru’s chuuni mannerisms can swing between annoying and funny. The characterisation also needs some work but quite frankly I am looking forward to the further dire adventures of Subaru’s time loop hell.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 02

With the second episode we have some clarity over what Kiznaiver is going to be about and it seems my assumption was correct. What we have here is a kind of Kokoro Connect drama with some trigger style humor. Our characters are placed in a Saw like game where they must reveal their biggest secret or receive a electric shock. Our game master threatened that they would die if they didn’t pass but I find it hard to believe she would kill them in cold blood, especially when she looks to have a fondness for our whited haired protagonist. The situation gets exceedly dangerous but with the humor it makes it hard to determine just how dangerous the situation really is. If the place exploded I wouldn’t be surprised to see all the characters come out unharmed and covered in soot. That is good as it prevents the show from becoming overly melodramatic and getting dragged down with serious tone. What I find most interesting at the moment is the nature of the characters secrets for you see in the first episode Noriko made a comparison between the main characters and the seven deadly sins. At first I thought it was a one off joke as she later goes on to say the deadly sins have changed their forms and suggests alternative names which Agata dismisses as her making fun of them. However what is interesting is that each of the secrets the main characters revealed in this episode related to the seven deadly sins. Tenga is afraid of dogs and hides it for fear of ruining his reputation. Pride. Niko pretends to be eccentric because she thinks otherwise people will be jealous of her. Envy. Chidori is in love with Agata. Lust. Yuta used to be a fat kid. Gluttony. Agata is apathetic towards everything. Sloth. And Maki claims to have killed someone before. Wrath. So you would naturally assume that Noriko is our Greed but there is another member featured in the opening who hasn’t yet been introduced. The mysterious fellow with bandages on his hands. Likely he will be introduced in the next “Mission” and I am willing to bet his nature will have something to do with money. I am guessing he joins the Kiznaver project due to payment.

This episode’s mission acts as a nice character development episode and does act to further the plot. I can sort of understand the logic of this exercise. In getting these people to share their secrets you create a personal connection between them. As the wise Katsuragi Keima said, for people far apart secrets can be superglue. Or in more practical terms, sharing a secret with someone allows people to get closer together. By forcing them to spill their secrets it forces them to coexist with someone else as they can’t leave them alone in case they tell, and in turn that person knows them better than anyone else. Sound logic even if the means to achieve this involve demolition. In tone the secrets are half in slapstick territory and half being deathly serious. For one I find it most amusing that Niko pretends to be eccentric without really realising that she is naturally eccentric. As for Maki’s claims to have killed someone I am fairly certain she is embellishing the details. Her “Murder” was likely something she did indirectly or blames herself for. While I would love it if she truly did murder someone with full intent instead it’s not likely that is the case. THis happens to be another strong episode of Kiznaver and I hope it stays this way after seeing Maigo go downhill very fast. Hopefully Okada’s bad tendencies are all taken by that show and don’t seep into this one. On another note the opening is fantastic and really gets me in the mood for the show. In particular I love the prism styled showcase of the characters. It’s only flaw is that after seeing it I have “Take on me” by a-ha stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

~AidanAK47~

Flying witch – 02

You know, I always have problem with the 3-act structure, where usually they imply that the story need to have a meaning and the main characters have to grow. While those incidents that change your life indeed happened, each people have 4 or 5 of them at most, and the remaining time between those incidents we function like those in slice-of-life series, where everything don’t seem to change and we stay the same as well. So for me, slice of life is a genre that I certainly appreciate. The main problem with slice of life series in not because nothing happens, but rather because they tend to repeat things that we already know or the cast is not endearing/ interesting enough for us to care. I’m happy to say that this is not the case for Flying witch. The show already demonstrated strong execution in both fronts. I enjoyed a touch magical realism and characters feel like real people, without all those annoying exaggerating gestures.

The episode splits into 2 parts, and we got introduced to a harbinger, the spirit (I guess) who brings summer to town there. The harbinger has quite an amusing character’s design. Chinatsu’s reaction towards the harbinger steals the show for me. The comic timing is great, and she also acts like someone her age, and not in moe-mode (This season does offer many strong 12-years-old-and-under female characters, with this show along with Kumamiko and 12-san). The flowers just bring a smile to my face all the time. The second half is also wonderful, with her dream is my favorite part. I love how she keep rambling that witch’s dreams are like a prophet, and right after that just plainly say “It’s all myth”. Bakke cooking scene is very endearing as well.

The thing I love from the show so far is there are still too much to explore from their world. Just by 2 episodes they already provide something new each time, yet never distract the atmosphere. The score used in the episode also fits nicely to enhance that atmosphere as well. You know a show is good when 20 minutes run almost effortlessly and I enjoyed every moments of the episode. The show certainly gives you a charming feeling, with beautiful winter-turns-summer background and if you don’t mind slow pacing and almost no conflict situations, you will enjoy Flying witch.

~SuperMario~

Mayoiga – 03

Out of the 3 shows that I’m covering this season, I actually worry about Mayoiga the most. Sure, so far Bungou Stray Dogs isn’t good, but at least I enjoyed its visual and know what to expect on it, same goes with Flying Witch and Flying Witch will be the more consistent show of this season here. But 3 episodes in, I’m still not sure how Mayoiga will play out, it can range from the more ambitious show to the more silly show, or perhaps will be a combination of both.

To the surprise of no one, Masaki returns this episode after allegedly “vanished” from last week, and she was protected by our main protagonist Mitsumune (to no surprise as well). I enjoyed the back and forth confrontation between the group. Each of them have a distinctive voice so it’s always fun to see them playing off each other, even most of these are way over the top. But at the same time, I hated their reactions. Many of them overreact over a small, nonsensical comment. The overreaction has sadly become anime-staple now so we just have to deal with it. It’s nice to see a bit of background info on some characters, since we won’t care about them unless we know them. Those moment, unfortunately, is so few and far between, because- uh… the series have to spend time for other stuffs I guess.

And that other stuff in this episode happens to be when everyone decides to group together and making food together. These scenes sadly drag the whole episode down, and out of it we won’t learn anything (even who was in the group), the only thing we learn is the variables of rock, paper, scissors – which are nice on its own but feel out of place with the rest of the series.

About the mystery, now we get a bit of new clues: the vegetables have been well-growth indicates that someone still take care of them, we have a prison cell in this village so I reckon the same occurrence has happened before. We also have a bear-claw shape, and a body at the end. Things now just begin to get crazy, but based on the shaky execution from the first 3 episodes, there is doubt if Mayoiga going to hit a home run.

~SuperMario~

Some Quick First Impressions: Sansha Sanyou, Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge and Kuromukuro

Sansha Sanyou

Short Synopsis:  A awkward former rich girl makes friends for the first time.

For the love of god someone turn down the brightness! Either my computers screen settings malfunctioned for a moment or this anime is so bright it could burn a hole through my retina’s. That literally glaring issue aside this is a decent show for those who are fans of the cute girls genre thing. I mainly details how a rich girl whose family become poor managed to make friends with two odd girls after a strange encounter during lunch. So the first episode was mainly of her attempting to keep a haughty attitude while being extra self conscious to try and not scare off her newfound friends. Even I with a heart of stone and a dark mind found her efforts to be friendly rather endearing. So in the grounds of giving you that feeling of needing to protect something it gets a passing grade. The comedy on the other hand doesn’t do anything for me. I would look more to flying witch if you were looking for something to make you feel fluffy inside but if you need another show to fill the gap then this should suffice.

Potential: 40%

 

Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge

Short Synopsis: There’s a guy called Tanaka and he’s really lazy.

There are two comedy animes this season which are centered around a single joke. The first is Sakamoto desu ga and the second is this. Sakamoto’s joke is that Sakamoto is perfection incarnate. Tanaka-kuns joke is that Tanaka is very lazy. However Sakamoto is quite entertaining when Tanaka is just dull and boring. Why is that? Well the first aspect is that if you are building a series around a joke that you should make sure the joke is funny. In this case the joke is in the title and that joke is really more of a statement than a joke. Tanaka is very lazy, so what of it? Sakamoto made it’s joke work because of it’s ridiclous nature and the fact that the series is not corely about Sakamoto, but rather who Sakamoto effects though his actions. Tanaka is about Tanaka and there is nothing to him other than being lazy. Tanaka needs to be carryed everywhere…because he’s lazy. Tanaka is concerned with his position when he’s falling asleep…because he’s lazy. Tanaka wants to build up muscle so his legs and arms don’t fall asleep…because he’s lazy. This entire episode was refriming Tanaka was indeed lazy and that’s not a joke. KyoAni’s Chuunibyou show had a character just like this called Kumin and even she had more to her than Tanaka. This is a half hour of a comedian standing on stage talking about the weather. You sit waiting for the joke that never comes.

Potential: 0%

 

Kuromukuro

Short Synopsis:   Giant Robot aliens invade. So it’s up to a naked guy and some bland teenage girl to save the day.

You know, I am tired of animes that start the series with a random battle between two unknown factions. I mean truly what is the point of that? Without context on who is fighting, why they are fighting or whats at stake this fights tension can be replicated by me watching Rock em, Sock em robots. Of course I don’t want an exposition dump layered on top as other anime usually do but truly I don’t see the need of jumping to this moment in time to watch two robots duke it out. Perhaps this was to ensure the mecha fans that this series does indeed have mecha before launching into a tremendously boring school life segment were a girl attempts to return a phone her mother left behind at a parent teacher conference. I will say that this isn’t a bad show but a rather uninspired one. As one of the first anime to be exclusively simulcast on Netfllix, you could have made a better choice. Honestly, Crunchyroll, Funimation and the rest of you anime companies, hows about hiring someone who knows anime to decide what gets licenced or not. Maybe then you could have nabbed the obvious goldmine that is One Punch Man before Viz got it.(Heard you were dubbing OPM last month so you better do a great job on that) Back on topic, Kuromukuro has trouble so far balancing out it’s mecha and slice of life segments. The mecha CGI is also fairly underwhelming and the plot so far is straightforward of the genre. I am getting reminded of Rinne no Lagrange which held many of the same problems. Though in this case our main female character is lacking any real defining points besides mother issues and I fear that the male protagonist’s character arc will mainly be a fish out of water story. As I said in my preview, what will make this worthwhile or not is the ratio of mecha and school life. If the school life is going to be at the forefront here this this should make for an excellent sleeping pill from sheer boredom.

Potential: 30%

Bungou Stray Dogs – 02

Boy, this episode does highlight many of the show’s shortcomings. In a way, that is a good thing, because we now know what elements that DON’T work for the series.

First and the most jarring issue is the comedy. All the gags, from Atsushi considers himself to be useless, Dazai suicide’s obsession, Kunikida’s being constantly teased by Dazai, already feel dragging and wear out its welcome. Consider this is just second episode this is not a good sign. The dialogue in general is not great either, it either does not advance the story or flesh out the character, and mostly stays too long on its jokes. While a little comedy would definitely be welcomed, making the comedy the central focus is a wrong step for this series.

The second weakness of the show is the characters themselves and their relationship. The central relationship between Dazai and Atsushi, for example; have been done countless times before and this one so far doesn’t offer anything new on the table. This week we get introduced again a whole bunch of new characters. They are, like last week’s new characters at the end of the episode (which completely disappeared this week), feel like just a decoration of the show. Although they are based on real Japanese authors, for now all of them are just one-note, over the top and I get the feeling they’re just there for kicking, screaming and supporting the main characters. It seems like next week we going to get a whole bunch of new character as well, so I’m a little worry there.

Lastly, the plot in this episode is a step down from last week. It’s always a given that Atsushi will be a member of Armed Detective Agency, so giving an entire episode just to reach that again is a wasted and really slow the story down. The plot itself is ridiculous. So the Agency gave Atsushi a trial without him knowing it and he passed it because he used his body to shield the bomb. REALLY? How on earth is that a plausible action? I’m actually thinking of a line from Joker’s Game “Getting killed or commit suicide is the worst possible decision a spy can make”. It actually can apply very fittingly here.

But not everything from this episode is negative though. I still pretty much enjoy the direction of the show. The use of color-palate, for example, give me a strong atmosphere that I rarely find in other anime series. I also enjoy the production design of Bongou Stray Dogs, from last week’s Under the bridge at the beginning to the warehouse at the end, or the place where Atsushi wake up in the morning or the Agency office, each of the place have such rich personality and give them a very distinctive feel. Bungou Stray Dogs shines when they focus more on the characters, like when Atsushi talks to Dazai about him being left out, there were a sense of sadness in his speech; the show also shines when they deliver the supernatural twist to the story (which appeared none in this second episode). I still have hope for the show. Next week it seems like the story will get dark though, and I pretty much prefer the series to be dark than its current light-heart, so here hoping the for the show to pick itself up from this misstep episode.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 02

Joker Game is still proving to be an interesting thriller though this episode started off a bit rough. There was over four minutes of flashing back to the previous episode and even the opening of this episode. In a way it was used to show just how Sakuma came to his conclusion which revealed the man to be an American spy but it felt a bit excessive. That said I love how this all played out and just how the American managed to fool the Japanese military on the first search of his house. It truly is a mark of genius to place the microfilm behind the imperial portrait as based on the mentality of Japanese soldiers of the time, they would never dare desecrate the portrait and leave it untouched in a search. At the moment Sakuma was about to cut his own stomach open, he remembered the lessons of the spy agency and managed to figure out the trick. It’s a great moment to see the smug look of the American disappear into pure panic as one of the members of the D agency revealed his hiding place. And with that all’s well that ends well correct?

Wrong. For there was more to this raid than our soldier was privy to. The second raid on the Americains home was all a ploy to disguise his superior’s failure to find anything in the first raid. He intended to make Sakuma a scapegoat in order to keep his reputation clean. He never intended him to find anything. Through some elaborate investigation Sakuma manages to find out this as well as details about the boss of the D agency and his intentions of taking advantage of this matter. He does so well that the boss even offers to train him as a member of the D agency. What we have is a series of schemes in tandem. The American spy was trying to steal intel, a superior officer was trying to cover up his mistake and the boss of the D agency trailing the superior in order to find an exploit to blackmail him into investing more into the D agency. In the beginning Sakuma berated the D agency for making use of underhanded methods and here he now understands that the military is not above such measures. HIs final resolution is interesting in that he has not embraced the D Agency’s philosophy but rather he wishes he can die with honor rather than be used as a tool for someone else’s agenda. To me those things are the same but to a nationalist member of the society of the time it may not be the case.

At the moment while I do love Joker Game, I find it’s being a little too straightforward in it’s storytelling. I feel we could have a greater layer of nuance in its production as this small doesn’t leave much room for moral complexity. Everything is laid out and explained so even a child could understand the plot. In some regards that’s a good thing as simplicity doesn’t mean it’s bad but considering it’s a fairly mature story I would think it would be good to leave things up to interpretation. I for one would have liked to speculate more on just why the Boss walks with a cane despite his legs being perfectly fine. I would have likened it to a psychological tactic in order to make people underestimate him but instead it is spelled out to be a distraction from the bosses real disability. His left prosthetic hand. On that note I am surprised he can get a prosthetic hand of such quality which can fool people into thinking it’s real. I am not certain on the plan of disguising a disability with another disability other than preventing him from being identified by word of mouth. Despite my gripes there is an air of style around this piece; it has an atmosphere that clarifies the word cool. There is a certain suaveness in how the characters carry themselves and the smug knowing smiles that exemplify a kind of hidden badassery. Even if this doesn’t appear to be a particularly deep story, at least it’s going to be an entertaining one.

~AidanAK47~

Fire Emblem Fates Video Game Review – 77/100

Now that Revelations has been out for a month and I’ve had a chance to thoroughly replay all three games and virtually explore all of their gameplay elements, I figured now would be the best time to review the latest editions to the Fire Emblem franchise.

As a pretext, I’ve decided to review all three games at the same time in this spoiler free review, because they’re essentially the same games in terms of their core gameplay aspects. I’ll be breaking them down first with respect to their gameplay, then I’ll split my discussion about their stories into a spoiler-free review.

Continue reading “Fire Emblem Fates Video Game Review – 77/100”

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 02

As Bill Murray can attest, reliving the same day isn’t the best situation to be in. You may gain all the time in the world to master whatever you wish, no consequences for any of your actions and the ability to do over any situation not matter how dire. But you have to live through the same tedious situations over and over again, reintroduce yourself to people day after day knowing they will only forget you and eventually the time will come when you will break from the loneliness of the situation. But things are much harder for Subaru who not only has to repeat the day but also repeat his death over and over again. I am willing to give Subaru a break for not figuring out the time loop earlier considering that death is pretty traumatic and it’s easier to assume that it was a dream than face the reality that you just died. However with three turn backs even he figures out that he’s in a time loop. Subaru has been killed three times, twice in the loot house by Elsa and now once in the alley when he was accidentally stabbed by a group of muggers. When I think about this story, I am glad that white Fox was the ones to animate this. This isn’t the first time after all that they have dealt with a story of this nature

This episode was not very eventful as it was essentially Subaru attempting to retrace his previous attempt at a much faster pace. To sell his phone to the thief Felt in order to obtain the stolen medal and return it to our elfen tsundere before Elsa comes by and kills everyone. What I like about this so far is that our protagonist doesn’t shake off his deaths so easily. He jokes about it and generally puts up a good front but it really did affect him deeply. He runs into Elsa while looking for Felt and looks to be hit with some heavy post traumatic stress disorder. He is truly, utterly terrified of that woman which makes her pretty intimidating despite her looking to be just a minor villain. It’s the small changes in Subaru which catch my attention the most as I find him to be the most interesting of the cast. Subaru claims to be a Hikikomori but on all accounts he doesn’t seem like one. It could be a case like with KonoSuba where the protagonist gets a huge confidence boost due to being in a anime situation but I don’t quite think that’s the case. Subaru doesn’t look like a Hikikomori, nor does he fight like one. His fight with Felt when she was attacking him was most surprising when he displayed some pretty impressive dodging skills. To me, Subaru feels like a former delinquent who picked up anime as a hobby. That would explain his fighting ability.

As for the rest of the cast, I find them lacking. The problem is that a large amount of them are standard stereotypes with not much to them. I don’t hate them as they have enough to be likable but they do lack unique depth. They need more to them to differentiate themselves from the number of similar styled characters. The father daughter relationship she has with the loot shop owner is a step in the right direction but she still requires more. But at least the characters do work for what this story is trying to do. In particular it was good that thanks to Subaru being so forward and knowing too much, it caused Felt to be more on guard and suspicious of him.  As well as Elsa gaining an interest in Subaru after he froze up in fear in front of her. Whether the changes Subaru made end up getting him out of this mess is still in question but it looks like he made some good moves this turn. I have a feeling that Knight introduced this episode will play a big role in how this resolves.

~AidanAK47~