Nichijou (2011)

Nichijou is a 26 episode comedy anime based on the manga series. The anime centers mainly about Yukko Aioi and Naganohara Mio, although there are several other characters as well. Yukko and Mio are both in high school; they are friends with Mai, a quiet girl who shows little emotion. Yukko on the other hand is energetic and constantly forgets to do her homework while Mio is cheerful herself and a model student. The other main set of characters are Professor, an eight year old girl, Nano, the robot girl she created, and Sakamoto, their talking cat.

The anime excels at exaggerating events as well as going in a direction that you will not expect at all, which is where most of the humor is derived from. Each episode is split up over several shorter segments. Some of the character thoughts are weird, some of their actions are weird and sometimes you can’t even follow it at all. It has an odd sense of humor but this is a double edged sword as it frequently becomes too odd. There will be extremely funny scenes, followed by bouts of boring mundane events. Yet a lot of those times, it manages to make those mundane events quite funny or interesting with its over the top nature.

The anime quickly establishes each character’s personality and traits. Yukko is a big klutz and as a result, she does a lot of embarrassing things or gets the short end of the stick in most situations. Camping? She accidentally spills all the curry onto the group. Forgot to do her homework? She tries to copy Mai’s answers but whether Mai is just oblivious or if she is playing Yukko like a fiddle, she keeps giving her the wrong one. So despite Yukko wanting to act mature and cool, her inexperience or cluelessness usually is her downfall and this is hilarious.

Mio, while calm most of the time, gets really aggravated by her sister’s antics, who loves to play what can be called pranks on her. Mio also has a secret hobby of manga drawing, which she is embarrassed about due to the content of those drawings. These are usually some of the funniest scenes in the anime, with Mio’s expectations and then having those shattered.

Nano, despite being a robot created by Professor, is almost perfect in passing for a human apart from having a massive classic wind up key protruding from her back. This is her weakness given Nano wants to look less like a robot. The dynamic between the Professor and Nano is that while Professor created Nano, Nano acts more like the mother of the pair. The trio of Professor, Nano and Sakamoto never directly interact with Yukko’s group to a significant degree early on. At best, they were a background character passing by, although this does eventually change.

The anime keeps you guessing at what will happen next, by throwing surprise after surprise. A normal school morning with students walking to school? Someone will randomly ride a goat in. The teachers walking down the corridor? We then get an entire monologue of one of the teachers who is currently debating how the breach of topic of whether another teacher is single. There will also frequently be segments that don’t feature any of the main characters or their classmates at all. This are in a completely different setting, like a sci-fi action piece or some sort of thriller. These take you out fo the moment and makes you wonder whether you’ve accidentally watched the wrong anime.

The aesthetics are simple but overly cute, although they are very colorful and looks great all of the time. It is reminiscent of classic older anime. There are frequent art shifts to accompany the exaggerated reactions. The season doesn’t give a proper ending since there is no indication or acknowledgement that it is the last episode. It goes on as per normal, but one of the characters comes to the understanding that things are okay and they got their wish.

Overall, Nichijou is an odd series. There are genuine amazing funny moments, and when they come, they hit hard. However, equally, there are a lot of weird over the top scenes that may not make sense. The animation and aesthetics are welcoming as it reminds you of older anime in a good way. It’s hard to say whether Nichijou is worth watching or not, since it’s a slice-of-life anime that takes time to warm up to and appreciate.

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Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (PS2 / PS4)

Star Ocean:  Till the End of Time is the third game in the Star Ocean JRPG series.  Originally for the PS2, it was ported over to PS4 with HD resolution and trophy support.  Despite the minor enhancements, you still have to keep in your mind that this is an old game, with a lot of aged gameplay mechanics.  While the character models are fine, the environments are muddy and pixilated, as are the cutscenes.  It also has a weak tutorial system and this is the series’ first game to 3D, so camera controls, using the shoulder buttons, are awkward.  At least it has widescreen support.

While you can rotate the camera in all environments, the camera angle is locked in looking down from above.  The developers used this as a way to hide treasure chests but this also makes it hard to see afar where enemies are, or where you’re going.  You end up relying on the mini-map, so you miss out on checking out the scenery which is half the fun.  At least there are no random battles, instead enemies roam the environments so you have a chance of avoiding them if you don’t want to battle.

The game has a clunky battle system at first.  In particular, the aiming is horrendous as you’ll miss more often than not.  It’s quite difficult to time your attacks when you first start off the game, since enemies always seem to land the hit faster than you, interrupting your attack which is annoying.  This gets much better as you slowly get used to the system and your characters gain skills so you can actually use the combat mechanics to its full potential.

The game uses a real time battle system where everyone has a Fury bar.  If the bar is full, you are protected from normal attacks.  A strong attack must be used to break the shield.  This is quite annoying since strong attacks are normally slower, so you might have to wait for the enemy to attack to leave enough time in their opening so you can land yours.  In addition, you can side step, run around the battlefield, use items and magic.  Not only do you have to constantly be on top of the three status bars of your characters (HP, MP and Fury), but also the rest of your party since their AI is pretty bad.

Attached to your character’s strong and normal attacks are skills, such that you can activate them when attacking.  This leads to the cancel attack mechanic where you can chain the skills right after an attack and this gives it a damage multiplier.  Unfortunately, using skills not only cost MP, but may cost HP and Fury so as mentioned, in the heat of things, there are a lot of bars to manage.  One thing to note is that if your HP or MP is reduced to nil, that character is knocked out.  Yes, you can be MP killed, but you can also use this to your advantage against enemies with low MP.

Your party is comprised of a maximum of three characters.  During battles, you can change the party member you’re controlling instantaneously with the shoulder buttons.  This is required given you need to select that particular character in order to get them to use items or to use specific spells.  Unfortunately, most skills use up HP as well as MP and in conjunction with the dumb AI, it is the perfect recipe for party member deaths and constant low HPs, as the AI is too stupid to conserve their HP.  Instead they spam skills on enemies, causing them to be perpetually on the brink of death and then because of low HP / MP, they stand around doing nothing to “preserve” themselves.

This is a game where the PS2 roots are obvious.  It loves to give you absolutely no guidance at all in progressing the game.  While there is a short tutorial on the battle system, it is poorly implemented and left out a lot of the most important aspects like the cancel attacks and skills.  It makes no mention that you gain SP when you level up that you can boost your stats with.  Dungeons are a confusing maze, filled with gimmicks that are absolutely annoying like locked doors, levers and on-rails sections.  Interacting with objects is also hit and miss since you need to angle the character just right.

The game uses save points.  Naturally, this is terrible in conjunction with the later long confusing dungeons that is extremely easy to get lost in.  Considering that dungeons are designed for you to get lost in, and difficult to see the whole map at once, you could be spending upwards to two hours before finding a save point.  This is always a terrible situation and when it happens, it is really obvious and frustrating, even more so with dungeon gimmicks like warping you back to the start of the current floor if you’re touched by moving obstacles.

Backtracking is pretty annoying later on too.  There is one particular point near the end of the game where you have to trek through an extremely annoying dungeon with a large and confusing layout filled with traps and high levelled enemies.  To make it even better, you have to fight multiple bosses along the way (and forcing you to trek back if you want to save).  The icing on the cake?  You have to trek all the way back out after going in, talk about annoying filler.

The story following Fayt, along with his childhood friend Sophia as they are chilling on a holiday planet.  However, the planet is attacked and everyone evacuates on a spaceship which is then caught in the crossfire.  Fayt ends up being separated from Sophia, dropping into a planet with less advanced technology (pretty much medieval ages).  He eventually gets caught in that planet’s affairs, and this spirals to a grand scale adventure where he learns that his father is more than he seems.  It ends up being a pretty interesting story, despite the poor voice acting.

There are huge amounts of story cutscenes so you’ll be watching a lot of them, which can break the flow of the game where several of them are quite slow and boring.  There are awkward pauses and lingering shots during scenes, especially during points where you advance the text and it takes a few seconds to register.  The graphics are quite decent, especially for a PS2 game.  The towns look great with the only slight negative being the low amount of people at times in the towns so it isn’t as bustling as it could have been.

There is a marked shift in the story towards the end of the game.  The majority of the first part takes place on one planet and you’re invested into the happenings of it.  Then a huge revelation comes around, and it’s a completely different type of story now which can feel jarring (but not unheard of in a JRPG).  It’s not bad, the story is still quite interesting, although it is somewhat lame that you recruit your full party so late into the game, meaning they join you at a very low level and you need to put in some effort to grind them up to scratch for that point in the game.

Dungeons and enemies towards the end of the game become noticeably harder and more annoying.  While if you have grinded enough then your stats aren’t an issue.  What is an issue are the enemies who has the frustrating combination of:  unable to be interrupted, fast attack animations, and being able to spam their moves which hits you multiple times in succession, thereby stunning you.  So when you are facing off against two or more of these enemies, you are constantly interrupted unable to attack and die in a very cheap way.  This causes the final parts of the game to really test your patience.  The difficulty spikes up really hard, as both normal enemies and bosses do a ton of damage.

The final boss can feel extremely cheap because it is so easy to beat if not for the fact that it has a party wide super move that will easily kill all your party members, and can be difficult to dodge without preparing beforehand to cheese it.  It is these types of things that make the game so terrible and unfair at times.  The dumb AI rears its ugly head here too, and the MP kill aspect is terrible.

There is a lot of post-game content, all of which are optional dungeons, several of which are extremely hard, and has the game’s toughest superbosses.  If you followed a walkthrough, beating the game takes around 30 to 40 hours without speed running through.  If you play blind, then it’ll be more likely to be 50+, and more likely to be a lot longer given you’ll constantly be lost.  There are also Battle Trophies, which are in-game achievements.  It’s a good idea but the actual implementation is clunky as it requires a secondary menu confirmation every time you get one and it asks you to save.  This happens as well when you load the game, since you need to load this separately.

Overall, Star Ocean:  Till the End of Time is both a great game and an annoying game.  It has cheap game design, whether it’s the unfair boss moves, extra hard enemies, confusing dungeons or save points that are spread too far apart, all these points ruin the game.  On the other hand, it is an enjoyable game where the combat is fun and you end up caring about the characters and their current situation.  However there are too many gameplay flaws that prevent it from being an amazing game, which is a shame as it tends to frustrate the player, blocking their progression, rather than allowing them to play the game without excessive grinding.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations War for Cybertron Kingdom Scorponok (Deluxe)

Review:  #701

Name:  Scorponok

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Predacon

Line:  Generations - War for Cybertron:  Kingdom

Year of Release:  2021

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 3)

Mold Status:  new

BEAST MODE:

Finally, after over twenty years, we get an updated version of Scorponok from the first season of Beast Wars.  Naturally, he transforms into an organic scorpion.

This is a decent scorpion mode, with no real flaws.  You can see the robot legs tucked into the tail, which is a pretty clever way to get that out of the torso (which is jam packed enough already).

Scorponok is a Deluxe sized figure, although he is a tad bit smaller than you would hope for.  Above is a comparison against TLK Bumblebee.

The scorpion mode is pretty good, there are several neat details, such as the head and the pincers.

Speaking of which, the pincers conceal some things inside.  The right one has missiles, while the left one has the cyber-bee.  Poseability in beast mode is limited, the tail is pretty fixed thanks to the robot legs tucked in there, so you really only have meaningful articulation for the arms.

A decent enough scorpion mode that recognizable as the one from the Beast Wars show.

TRANSFORMATION:

Simple enough but has one or two twists that keeps it interesting.  The most interesting thing is how one of the robot legs it tucked in the tail and the other in the torso.  Otherwise, once you've pulled those down, everything else is simple as the tail moves up, the pincers become the arms, and you fold the scorpion head away to reveal the robot head.

ROBOT MODE:

Scorponok's robot mode is pretty good, unfortunately, due to transformation, he has shorter legs than you would expect, leading to a very stumpy looking robot.

It's still above average though.  He has a ton of kibble, the scorpion legs fold on his back, and it is messy at first, but they are molded in such a way that they are designed to be folded away into this compact ball.

The head sculpt is great, it captures the show model fairly well.

If you thought Siege Sideswipe was a small Deluxe, then Scorponok beats him by another few centimetres.  It's unfortunate that Scorponok is so short as a result.

Scorponok didn't tower over other characters the show but he was at least the same height as Cheetor, but this is not the case in the Kingdom line unfortunately, so he's definitely smaller than he should be for a line that seemingly places so much emphasis on scale.

Anyway, Scorponok has decent articulation with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

The tail over his head is quite limited and cannot reach very far forward.

His pincers may seem huge and that is because each of them conceals something, the right one conceals two missiles.

While the left one conceals the cyber-bee.

The cyber-bee is small and has a 5mm peg to peg into the pincer, at least this time it doesn't take half the pincer off to form it, which is a plus (the trade-off being that it is smaller in this version).

The purple and grey used is seemingly perfect, and it has a nice sheen to it too.

Despite the stumpy look due to the short legs, this is still a fantastic update to the character.

OVERALL:

Scorponok is a long overdue update to the character and while it has its flaws in terms of his proportions, it remains a fabulous figure that's worth the asking price.  Needless to say though, if you're looking to fill the Season 1 cast in Generations form, then he cannot be missed.

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Joker (2019)

Joker is an origin film for the Batman villain but it isn't your stereotypical superhero film.  Instead, it is a darker and more subdued take on the genre, being more thought provoking and surprisingly, a more sympathetic look at the character.  Before this film, Joker was mostly portrayed as a maniac but here, before he became the Joker, Arthur is a mentally ill person looking for help, and trying to survive in the harsh society.  At the beginning of the film, you even have hope for the character.  He is ill but he is getting help (however flawed that help may be), he has a job and he at least recognizes that he has an issue.  Over the course of the film, through events that are sometimes out of his control, sometimes not, he descends bit by bit into madness.  Arthur has a condition where he gets into fits of laughter for no reason, and society misunderstands and punishes him for it.  While the pacing is steady, it grips you in how Arthur slowly gets into the state of mind and slowly turns into the character of Joker that we are familiar with.  The link to Batman only comes into play towards the end and at that, it is a fairly quick link since it is not the focus.  The film takes place many years before Batman makes his first appearance.  Joaquin Phoenix, the actor of Arthur / Joker, did a phenomenal job.  The scariest part comes at the finale where Arthur finally snaps and lashes out, with a memorable rant / justification and action.

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (2011)

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is an eleven episode anime. It starts off with Jintan being pestered by a younger girl, named Menma. You immediately start to notice something is wrong when despite all the noise that Menma makes, Jintan’s father doesn’t mind it at all. Thus you are not surprised when you find out that Menma had already died and this is her “ghost” coming back. She is only able to be seen and heard by Jintan, although other characters do feel something is odd whenever Menma tries to interact with them.

The plot then shifts between the childhood of Jintan, right before Menma died, and the present day. We learnt that Jintan and Menma were in a group of really close friends. When Menma had died, everyone was in shock and they all drifted away, which is a sad event no matter what the reason. Jintan ended up being somehow who always stayed at home and refuses to go to school, instead idling his time away, to the frustration of several others.

Now that Menma had reappeared, Jintan learns that he has to fulfill her wish. The trouble is that he doesn’t know what that wish is. He has some recollection and tries to complete those but those are not the ones that Menma is truly here for. One can suspect that it’s probably Menma’s desire to bring the group of friends together again and this slowly happens. Despite a few awkward encounters at first, including some hostile ones, Jintan slowly gathers the group of friends together again, explaining what had happened.

The anime excels at pulling some sort of emotional reaction from you, it has a nostalgic and melancholy feel to it. Getting the group back together is tough, it gets awkward and the characters may not like each others’ personalities given they haven’t grown up together or seen each other for years. However, it is because of this that every little improvement sticks out in a good way and gives you hope that Menma’s wish may just come true after all.

As the episodes go on, you’ll come to realize that all the characters blame themselves for Menma’s death to a degree. Despite what it seems on the outside, they are all affected and filled with guilt. As each character remembers their final moments with Menma and you see how they blame themselves, it keeps tugging on your heartstrings. Perhaps what keeps you engrossed is slowly finding out all the feelings of the characters. Each one has their own regrets and their lives may not be so contented after all. Some are obvious, like Jintan shutting himself inside his house, but even the perfect Atsumu with his good looks and great academic achievements, or Naruko with her friends, they are hiding several issues.

You can’t help but smile at seeing some rifts heal and that the characters are doing nearly all their can to help Menma along the way. Considering that it seems far-fetched that Jintan can see Menma and isn’t making it up, it’s like they want to believe in it as they couldn’t let it go themselves. There’s a lot of pain felt by everyone and this transfers to the viewer, especially when things do not go their way and they start fighting among themselves.

It’s not all positive given there are several scenes that take you out of the mood, especially ones where Jintan does something embarrassing or cringeworthy. They’re things that he does with the best intentions, like helping his friends, but it feels cliched and relying too much on cringe humor. Furthermore, the deeper you go, the more apparent it is that it is a messy pool of feelings that each character harbors for the other. Given the title can be a bit of a spoiler, you’d expect nothing that hte group tries to do is actually Menma’s true wish. You will also wonder how the anime can possibly end on a satisfying note given how even by the penultimate episode, it feels like there are too many loose ends left. Surprisingly, it manages to do just that and ends on a fantastic note, giving proper closure to all the characters. The ending has its emotionally strongest scene yet and it will serious bring tears to your eyes.

A lot of the emotional punch is thanks in particular to the ending theme. When it is played every time at the end of an episode, usually at a pivotal emotional point, it gets you with its soothing and innocent nostalgic melody. Even the lyrics are meaningful and considering that this song was a cover, it matches the anime’s plot so well.

Overall, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day manages to capture you from the get go. It immediately brings forward a strong sense of nostalgia, serenity and innocence with its premise. It’s not a perfect anime, and neither are the characters. Each character has their own flaws, hiding their ugly sides and the anime shows their path to redemption over the course of the episodes. It strikes a relatively good balance between the themes of family, friendship and romance. There are various plot threads that manages to tie together very well, although the usage of romance can be a bit tiring, but it leads to a satisfying ending.

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