School-Live! (2015)

School-Live! is a 12 episode anime that’s based on the manga series. For most of the first episode, you would be hard pressed to figure out the true nature of this anime if you didn’t already know. It’s set in high school, following Takeya Yuki, an overly cheerful and energetic girl who’s also a bit of an airheaded. She’s a part of the school living school club and has a lot of fun at school with her friends. The bright colorful animation coupled with the overly cute designs of the characters would lead you to believe that it’ll be a stock standard slice-of-life high school anime. No, that is not the case and this only shows up at the end of the first episode.

So, a word of warning, there are major spoilers right ahead, but the plot starts off really slow and while we get to see the real situation from time to time, it still focuses a lot on “normal” school life. Eventually, by the third episode, we finally find out what happened on the day when the zombie outbreak occurred, and how the band of characters made it through and met together. Now, they are living at the school. The anime takes the time to cycle through each character and shows us their life beforehand.

Due to the high focus on normal school life, this is a really unique mix where we get the overly cheerful slice of life events, mixed in with when the characters is hit with a big dose of the reality that they are in. It’s hard to say whether this works or not since it is somewhat weird and the themes clashes against each other from time to time. Yuki, avoiding everything and deluding herself, can make her seem a bit selfish considering the life or death situation that they find themselves in.

As the plot moves on, we are shown how the characters are coping and how they are surviving. We learn some traits of the zombies, and if you stop to think about it, it is actually quite scary a predicament that they find themselves in. As far as they know, everyone else has died or turned into zombies, and they are the last ones alive and are trapped at the school. While the school is well stocked in food and has plenty of facilities such as electricity generators, bathroom facilities and even a mini garden on the roof, it’s still a tough situation, mentally and physically.

By the halfway point in the season, you’ll come to realise that the overly lighthearted nature, considering the situation, is here to stay. There are some questionable choices made by the characters, as despite the danger, they would think it’s a good idea to have a leisurely outing and tagging along with them is someone who has no idea and could attract the zombies at any give time. Speaking of which, the zombies aren’t completely mindless either, they seem to act in response to some residue memories of when they were still alive and sentient.

A trend with the anime is how it likes to constantly jump back and forth in time. In doing so, it throws heavy hitting revelations at you. It’s something that you might have suspected and now confirmed. It touches upon the source of the outbreak and its true nature. Although throughout all of this, you’ll constantly wonder whether Yuki is being selfish with her refusal to face the current situation (although this is a form of mental illness) or whether she’s holding the whole team together as it gives some purpose as everyone is constantly reminded of the hopeless situation.

The build up of getting to know the characters is worth it in the end. There’s a good payoff in the second half of the season where the anime is not shy of doing certain things with the characters. It targets their individual traumatic experiences, and you can feel how much it hurts them to confront it like that. While it does dial up the fan service elements at the same time, it succeeds in painting a truly despairing scenario where you confront zombies who were previous your companions, your friends, you family. It can get dark in the final episodes, before giving us a bright spot to look forward to and push the characters forward.

Overall, School-Live! is an interesting mix of different moods. For the vast majority of the time, it is a typical overly positive high school slice-of-life. For the remainder, it is set in a hopefully post-apocalyptic world filled with dangers, and it actually tackles several darker themes, which can take you by surprise. It’s hard to say whether this mix actually works, especially when compared with the storytelling method of jumping back and forth. However, it is easy to say that by the end of the season, you’ll be attached to the characters where you genuinely care about their fates, and the things that are thrust upon them.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations War for Cybertron Siege Rumble & Ratbat (Micromasters)

 

Review:  #719

Name:  Rumble & Ratbat

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - War for Cybertron:  Siege

Year of Release:  2019

Size Class:  Micromaster (Wave 5)

Mold Status:  new

RUMBLE (ALTERNATE):

Officially, Rumble transforms into a drone armor.  However, it just so happens that it's a rectangular box, suspiciously like the tape mode of the G1 version...

There's not much here, he's red on one side, and black on the other.  Although the underside reveals his head and several other robot parts.

At the Micromaster size class, he's tiny, above is a comparison against Legends Barricade.

This mode is as you'd expect, and very limited by himself.

TRANSFORMATION (RUMBLE):

To get Rumble into robot mode, the transformation scheme is reminiscent of the Masterpiece version.  You fold out his legs from the sides and bottom, and then the top for his arms.  Flip out his wrists and you're done.

RUMBLE (ROBOT):

Rumble's robot mode is... okay.  He's short and stocky, bordering on being stumpy.  Yes, the proportions are definitely off.

He doesn't have that much kibble but due to his small size and resulting simplicity, he's quite blocky.

He's tiny in this mode as you'd expect, above is a comparison with Legion Crosshairs.

The head sculpt is okay, and he does have several nice highlights on his chest.

Surprisingly, articulation is not too bad.  He has joints for his head, shoulders, hips and knees.

That said, he's still difficult to pose but for such a small figure, that's understandable.

RATBAT (ALTERNATE):

Ratbat, just like Rumble, transforms into a rectangular prism. but purple this time.

Unlike Rumble though, Ratbat doesn't quite fill up the whole volume due to his robot mode, so there are some gaps here.

Ratbat is the same size, so he's quite small.

While subjective, the purple can be a nicer and more unique color scheme, but the gappier alternate mode makes Ratbat behind Rumble.

TRANSFORMATION (RATBAT):

A simple transformation but it's hard to do anything better given the small size.  The wings fold out and then lift to the sides.  You then fold the head down and flip down the feet before you're done.

RATBAT (ROBOT MODE):

Ratbat doesn't have a humanoid robot mode, instead, as the name implies, he transforms into a robotic bat.

That's pretty cool actually and he's well formed here.  He has nice angular pieces, despite transforming into a rectangular prism.

The head sculpt is great, and suitably evil for a Decepticon robotic bat.

Size-wise, he's wider than he is tall, so he appears very short compared to even the Legion class.

There's little articulation, only his wings can lift out to the sides, and the wings can fold up if you wish.

Nevertheless, this is a decent robot mode due to how unique the form is.

INTERACTION WITH SOUNDWAVE:

Of course, as Rumble and Ratbat are traditional the cassette tape minions of Soundwave, the pair are designed to complement Siege Soundwave in several ways.

In tape form, the first of which is that Soundwave's chest springs open and you can place a tape inside.

Given that the tape cover is clear, the colors of the tape can be seen through and it gives a nice effect.

Next, the bottom of each tape has a flip out 5mm post.  These posts allows them to be attached to Soundwave as a type of armor.  There are a few spots but the best looking ones are on his shoulders or his forearms.

When the pair are not in tape form though, the interactions are notably less.  You can carefully balance Ratbat on his forearm.

It's not a bad combination or set though, and complements Soundwave quite well.

OVERALL:

If you can find the pair for cheap, then they are great pickups.  Both are somewhat unique and are decent figures.  Rumble does have proportion issues but easy to overlook.  They're harder to recommend at full price though given that they are quite small, and having Siege Soundwave allows you to fully unlock their play value.

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Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya (2015)

The second season of Seraph of the End is again at 12 episodes long. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where virus killed off most (if not all) of the adult population, and monsters known as Horsemen of John roam the streets. However, these monsters are not the focus, rather, it is the vampires, and there is a currently a war between the remaining humans and the vampires. Vampires take humans as livestock as they require their blood, but the end of the first season has shown that humanity has done some cruel things as well, partnering with demons to obtain their power and match the vampires, as well as other types of experimentation.

Following Yuichiro, along with the rest of his squad mates Shinoa, Yoichi, Shiho and Mitsuba, they are part of the army that battles against the vampires. For newbies, they’re pretty tough and abnormal, in that they contracted with a demon of a higher tier. Continuing directly from last season’s finale, Yuichiro mysterious power he displayed is in question by pretty much everyone, and only Yuichiro’s mentor, Gurren, knows and he’s keeping it to himself. So in that aspects, it leaves that hanging in the background as it continues to introduce more powers provided by their demons.

The first half of the season focuses a lot on the political side of the army and the vampires. Each side has their own individual factions vying for their own self-interests. If you thought the first season was melodramatic, it’s even more so here, with a heavy dose of cheesiness. It tries to give epic moments but comes off as stereotypical and over the top. It constantly goes on about family and protecting each other, and Shinoa, more and more, is being reduced to someone who’s infatuated over Yuichiro, instead of the cool and snarky character back when she was first introduced. It gets worse when we see Shinoa not actually displaying any confidence when reporting to others in the army, whereas Yuichiro became the de factor leader. It’s just too different.

Yuichiro, as a character, continues to get worse as the season progresses. He had already shown these traits before but it is magnified here. His disregard for any sort of plan or authority, in order to just rush headlong into things and try to fight it out, is really annoying in the second half. Yes, we get that he will sacrifice and do anything for his “family” (i.e. his comrades), but when it gets to the point that whatever he does will only make things worse as he is so outclassed by his opponents, then it is idiotic and irrational. You end up not be able to rally behind Yuichiro, the protagonist, and the anime suffers as a result. The worst part is that there are no consequences for his idiot decisions, he’s still universally beloved by all the characters even though his foolishness gets many many comrades killed.

The setting of the post-apocalyptic world is only used for a cool-ish background (if that). Despite it being years since the “end” with buildings and vehicles overrun with nature, there are plenty of slick and clean vehicles to use, helicopters, good looking furniture, no shortage of resources like petrol, running water and electricity, and collapsed buildings next to the multistorey one that’s in perfect condition used as the headquarters of the human army. It stretches that setting too much when on the whim of the writer, they’ll just pull a sweet sports car or multitudes of army vehicles, whilst most of the characters are still fighting with melee weapons.

The halfway point in the season is when the characters start gearing up and engaging in the titular battle in Nagoya. It’s pretty much an all out battle between the humans and the vampires. Vampires are still shown to be physically superior but humans have created their own advantages, to the point now where they can dispatch them so easily, compared to last season where it took several members to take down even one. The battle sequences have improved a lot, and coupled with the rousing music, this leads to several solid scenes depicting victory and sacrifice.

The season finale promises the reveal of the titular Seraph of the End, and all the continual teasing of human experimentation etc etc. Unfortunately, like the rest of the anime, it’s too generic and as a result, the writing feels amateurish. There are continual power ups of the characters, and especially Yuichiro, who will pull power out of nowhere, and there’s no sense of caring on whether this makes sense or not from the writers. Mika’s appearance was teased from all the way back from the first season and yet there was no meaningful clash until the end of this season. The lack of consistency across the anime is a big flaw, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall, Seraph of the End:  Battle in Nagoya is more of the same. If you liked the first season, then you’ll like this one. It is a fairly generic anime though, it tries to take all the elements that made other anime successful and merge them into one, but it does it in such a clumsy and amateurish way that it destroys any credibility. The constant mention of Yuichiro’s motivation to protect his family, his idiotic brashness, the continual increase in power, and the lack of any consequences (or even just logic), significantly holds back the anime. The only saving graces are the music and the animation.

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Moss (PS4 / PSVR)

Moss is a puzzle platformer VR game. Like a lot of VR games, it’s strength it in its charm, novelty and sense of presence where you are actually in the game. The story is about Quill, a mouse who journeys on to save her uncle. This is told in a storybook fashion. This feeling is further enforced when you are brought into the world for the first time and realise that the scale is perfectly suited for a storybook adventure. Thanks to that scale, everything, including Quill, is very cute.

You play as Quill and as far as her abilities goes, they’re very simple. She is able to jump, which also extends to climbing blocks and shimmying on ledges. She wields a sword used to strike enemies and that’s basically it. While the game has a lot of platforming, her jump will take a bit of getting used to. It feels inaccurate and you can easily miss ledges, requiring you to try again.

The graphics, also with the presentation of the rest of the game, makes it feel like a storybook fairy tale. The game looks great and Quill is unbelievably cute. It’s one of the best looking games for the PSVR. The unique thing here is that while you play the game using Quill like any other third-person game, you are also an entity in the game, played through first-person. You, as the player, exists in the game and Quill is aware of you and will actually interact with you. You also have the ability to interact with certain objects in the world, which is where the majority of the puzzle elements come into play.

The puzzles are simple, the ones in the early levels only require you to move blocks in order to allow Quill to pass the gaps and obstacles. Interestingly, the game opts for a passive VR experience, and it is one of the most comfortable games to play in VR thanks to that if you are easily subject to motion sickness and nausea. The camera is fixed at all times, and the screen blacks out in order to show the next area. The flipside of this is that it can feel restrictive and slower paced when compared to say, Astro Bot (although that game was released later), which has a similar set up of first- and third-person.

The combat is very simple. Quill can swing her sword into a short combo. She can dodge, which is executed through pressing two buttons at the same time. Considering the number of unused buttons, it would have been better if that was mapped to another one instead. She can take three hits before you have to repeat the section, but you can actually spend a few seconds to heal her back to full health if you find the chance. Thus, the combat ends up being quite simple and is mainly focused on recognising the enemies’ attack patterns.

So while the puzzles start off easy, they soon get more involved, with the player having to interact with the environment, moving platforms, controlling enemies and placing objects. The tracking of the controller isn’t too great. As soon as it doesn’t detect all of the light of the controller, the tracking is iffy and starts drifting. Considering other games don’t have this problem, it’s kind of annoying. This becomes more of an issue (but not a fatal one) in later levels where you need to control enemies in order to solve puzzles, and make combat easier, but you need to stretch and move around you, making it easier to get out of range of the camera and hide the light of the controller.

The final set of levels, which act as the final boss of the game, was intense thanks to its use of music and typical platformer chase sequences. It slowly builds up the tension and anticipation, and you don’t know what is going to come next, feeling both dread and excitement at the same time. However, the actual final strike against the boss was somewhat disappointing as a result, as it didn’t live up to the build up.

There is free DLC which is downloaded as a patch to the game, titled The Twilight Garden. It is not a standalone piece of DLC, rather, it is built into the story in the form of three portals that you need to find through the game. Once found, it transports you to the titular location and you have to solve various puzzles to obtain better gear. It’s a surprisingly substantial DLC, especially considering it is free, as it adds new and more inventive types of puzzles that doesn’t just recycle assets. It adds in a new combat ability that may seem overpowered and gimmicky at first glance but will come in handy throughout the main game as well.

So as if to make up for the somewhat anticlimactic final strike of the story boss, the boss of the DLC is much more typical for a platformer. It’s a full battle and while the boss reuses an enemy design, it was fun and frantic. It’s tougher than what the rest of the game was but that isn’t saying too much since the game is pretty easy on the whole. This is where the generous checkpoints come in as well, so you never feel cheated out of time if you make a mistake and die as you aren’t forced to lose a lot of progress to restart from the very beginning.

The game is definitely on the shorter side, at three to four hours long on your first playthrough. That includes the time taken to think about each puzzle, and to play through the DLC. If you do a second run, you’ll realise how quickly you can blast through each section. However, it’s not about the quantity but rather the quality and Moss delivers on that front. It’s a good valued package all in all. There are plenty of collectibles scattered through the levels though, and a chapter select to help you get to those places a bit faster.

Overall, Moss is a great VR puzzle platformer. It doesn’t use the VR gimmick to its full potential since with some minor retool, it would work find as a non-VR game. However, its strengths lies in its charming protagonist and whimsical fairy tale feel. The difficulty is just right since it is not too hard but still presents enough of a challenge. Thanks to its relatively shorter length, it never outstays its welcome while still making you feel that you’ve gotten plenty of value out of it.

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